5 Ideas For A Best Selling Book Cover!

When it comes to marketing a book, the book cover is a book's primary direct selling tool. It speaks out to a potential buyer and reflects the quality of the content within. The fact is that we all buy books to read it afterward, and thus hardly have any ideas on the value of the content contained within. If a book cover design is creative, relevant, attractive and interesting, readers would at least browse through the content. What can you do for a book cover to make it interesting?

1. Use keywords that appeal


Your title has to hit the nail on its head. It should jump off the book cover and appeal to your buyers. It should solve a problem that the buyer is facing. To do this, you've got to conduct a research on what people like and want. What are the words that draw attention well? For example, if you are writing a book on Internet Marketing, words like "make money online", "riches" or "wealth", will appeal to the entrepreneurial target market. Set up a focus group, or ask a few friends on their opinion of the title options you have. You may be surprised at what great ideas others may have for you.

2. Relevant design elements


The design of your book cover needs to call out to the reader. It needs magnetism and relevance to your target market. Visually appealing book covers, with color combinations that match well and even photography, are often effective. The more outstanding your book is, the better its chances of being browsed.

3. Get creative help


Get the services of a graphic designer to work on your book cover. Review past work to get a feel of his or her style, against your personal preferences. While creative designers do an excellent job of making your cover outstanding, they may run the risk of getting off-track in the message of your book. Run samples provided through friends and associates before making a decision on the right cover to use.

4. The spine – of great importance but often neglected


Is your book too thin? Can the words be read when the book is displayed on its side on the bookshelf? The thickness of your book goes hand in hand with the internal book layout design. It is ideal that your book should not be too thin, as this would also lower the perceived value of your book. However, you shouldn't enlarge the font of your content in an effort to thicken your book either. As for the spine, it speaks to the book browser when the front can't be seen. Therefore it has to creative and communicative as well. Make sure that the font used on the spine is readable, and that the browser does not have to try to hard to read the text.

5. The back of the book


Much of book marketing involves making the best of your resources. There are many authors who fail to utilize the back of the book to their advantage. Have you ever picked up a book that does not say a thing about the content on its cover? Do you realize that many people turn the book around to its back to get a synopsis of it's content? If you can't do it yourself, hire a copywriter to work on your back cover. As a rule of thumb, try to include the core messages within your book, who needs to read the book, and also your personal credentials.

Finally, if you want to market a book properly, you probably need to put yourself in the shoes of the reader. Only then would you be able to identify the best ways to get through to them, through your book.

Hero's Journey, Monomyth (188 Stages) Screenwriting Tools, Value of Structure

FORWARD

The 188 stage Hero's Journey (Monomyth) is the template upon which the vast majority of successful stories and Hollywood blockbusters are based upon. In fact, ALL of the hundreds of Hollywood movies we have deconstructed (see URL below) are based on this 188+ stage template.

Understanding this template is a priority for story or screenwriters. This is the template you must master if you are to succeed in the craft.

[The terminology is most often metaphoric and applies to all successful stories and screenplays, from The Godfather (1972) to Brokeback Mountain (2006) to Annie Hall (1977) to Lord of the Rings (2003) to Drugstore Cowboy (1989) to Thelma and Louise (1991) to Apocaplyse Now (1979)].

THERE IS ONLY ONE STORY

THE 188 STAGE HERO'S JOURNEY:

a) Attempts to tap into unconscious expectations the audience has regarding what a story is and how it should be told.

b) Gives the writer more structural elements than simply three or four acts, plot points, mid point and so on.

c) Gives you a tangible process for building and releasing dissonance (establishing and achieving catharses, of which there are usually four).

d) Tells you what to write. For example, at a certain stage of the story, the focus should be on the Call to Adventure and the micro elements within.

ABRIDGED TIPS, EXCERPTS AND EXAMPLES:

(simply go to http://www.heros-journey.info/ for full details)

*****First Threshold Trial*****

Past the Fish out of Water stage, the Hero always undergoes a Trial in the Outer Cave of the First Threshold, In Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Clyde gets the groceries at gunpoint.

*****Hero Guardian*****

The Herald and Hero meeting is never quite as easy as it could be. There is always a block of some sort. Often Guardians block the Heralds from meeting the Hero. But obstacles can be expressed in many ways. In Brokeback Mountain (2005), the boys resist going into Joe's camper.

The Trouble With Book Reviews

To judge by a flyer from the just-inaugurated New York Center for Independent Publishing, book reviewers are in trouble. "SAVE OUR BOOK REVIEWS!" pleads its headline. "Over the past five years, one by one, newspapers have begun to forsake books and their readers. At dozens of papers, book coverage has been cut back or slashed altogether, puffed up with wire copy, or generally treated as expendable. The Board of the National Book Critics Circle has launched a campaign to try to combat these changes."

Assuming that the freefall needs to be stopped – what should be done?

When any industry is hit by a malaise, it helps to do three things. First of all, just to stave off precipitous decline, it makes sense to assure investors of the overall viability of the enterprise, and ask them to advance additional funds to help restore its profitability. Book reviews being hardly a strong profit earner, it would be less then realistic to put much hope into this step.

Of far greater importance is the second step to be taken – expanding customer base to increase the value of the enterprise. Usually, this cannot be effectively done without first implementing the third step – that of changing enterprise' entire business model.

In fact, book reviewers need to completely re-orient themselves, switching to an altogether different set of customers.

At present, reviewers are servants of big publishers. Rather than sifting through the mass of newly-published books in search of interesting and original ideas to present to the public, and acting as referees of merit, today's book reviewers earn their bread by hyping up books published by big houses, and turning them into "bestsellers." Some book-covers are just plastered with admiring quotes from reviews, with ecstatic "oh!"s, "ah!"s, and "how great!"s spilling from the covers to the first few pages of the text itself, while other books earn not a single review. Are the former adorned with superlatives because their merits were obvious to every reviewer in the country, while the latter were found, upon being read by the same reviewers, sadly devoid of merit? Not at all. The difference is due solely to the respective publishers' connections, the former being able to push their wares to reviewers' desks, while the latter having no such long arm.

A couple of years ago a novel called "The Memory of Running" was sold to a big publisher for around two million dollars – after fifteen years of having been rejected as junk. The lucky break came after the author came into contact with Stephen King while making an audio book for him. A nod from Mr. King did the alchemical trick of turning trash into gold – and, when time came to hype the book into bestsellership, every major reviewer published an opinion – an opinion of a book which would never have reached his desk had the author published it himself – since major reviewers have a stated policy of not considering author-published books for review. "The Memory of Running" made it not because of what was in it – that never changed since its trash years – but because it was published by people who were in a position to make book reviewers jump.

About half a year ago, during a panel discussion by the New York Times book review staff, I had a more direct confirmation that this is how book reviewers operate. I was eager to ask a simple question – "if all review submissions were made anonymously, leaving no clue as to the identity of author or publisher, wouldn't an altogether different set of books be chosen for review?" My turn to ask the question never came, but I buttonholed two members of the panel as they mixed with the crowd. Each one answered in the affirmative, even suggesting that this might be a vastly superior way of doing things, and confiding that a recent novel by a household-name novelist would have never been reviewed under such selection policy.

Interestingly, this is precisely how book reviewers used to work in the past. In early 1900s it was possible for a book anonymously published by its author to get some half dozen magazine reviews simply on the merit of its provocative ideas. (Far later, "What is Man?" proved to have been written by Mark Twain.) In the current book review climate, however, this would be inconceivable, reviews being an exclusive prerogative of publishing establishment, and having nothing whatsoever to do with book's quality and merit.

Perhaps, to save their industry, book reviewers should seriously consider extricating themselves from the far-too-close embrace of big publishers, and of choosing as customers the public, instead of the publishers – by basing their selection, just as it used to be a hundred years ago, only on merit, and completely ignoring irrelevances such as the identity of author and of publisher.

The public would be grateful to book reviewers for worthwhile ideas brought to its attention, the fellow-journalists would respect reviewers for pursuing newsworthy material, and the management would see that book reviews are an asset, and not a liability.

Which is, to think of it, the only reasonable way for book reviews to flourish, rather than wither.

© Vel Nirtist 2007

Author's Foreplay

I'm calling this "Author's Foreplay" in the hopes that the name alone will get you to read it. I find that I often don't bother to read a "foreward" or a "preface", or some such other word that means "read this first, because it has something to explain about what is herein following. So here it is my version of the beginning of a book.

Something I want you to understand about me and me writing this book: I am getting help. I am getting "inspiration" (defined as "in spirit" or "spirit within"). I am going to be using a lot of "definitions", most of which are from Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, circa 1984, which is the one I happen to have on hand. The reason for doing this is to bypass some of the confusion caused by "semantics", which I construe to mean "I heard what word you used, but do we have the same point of reference with regard to what that word means?" So, a definition of the word itself, where it comes from (like Latin, French, Greek, etc.) may be helpful in getting me, the writer, and you, the reader, on the same page. (Oh, Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood…).

Yeah, another thing I'm going to be using is song titles and song lyrics. I, like most people, relate to the music I heard and loved as I was growing up, in the full bloom and vigor of youth (which I have to say, is something I dearly miss). Being a child of the "first generation of rock 'n roll", I am very happy to have experienced the full gamut of music as it came out, from "Rock Around the Clock", to the early Elvis (who in my book is especially memorable for giving me my first sexual stirrings while watching him on Ed Sullivan) in the Fifties, to the music that ushered in and came with the "consciousness-expanding" era that was the Sixties, to the still-great music of the Seventies (as is witnessed by its continuation in today's movies and commercials) to who knows what or when. I may even throw in some disco references, as I loved to dance, therefore loved disco. I find that the people who proclaimed disco to "suck" either didn't know how or didn't want to embarrass themselves on the dance floor - a personal observation. If you're one of those, please excuse my generalization - it's another thing I'm going to be doing a lot of.

As an observer of and participant in the "human condition", I've come to some observational conclusions which you may or may not agree with. But that's okay, we can and should agree to disagree (or not). But, as the author-at-the-keyboard of this here book, I get to state my views. Should you want to state yours, you'll just have to write your own book. Not a bad idea, actually, because it really makes you get into your head and heart, your ego and id, your beliefs and knowings, of which there can be a big gap between.

Another thing I seriously want you to grok (from Robert Heinlein's incredibly influential book of the Sixties: Stranger in a Strange Land(to "grok" meaning to understand fully), I am not necessarily "there." Where? Well, so highly enlightened that I have the right to be telling you what's what and what's not what. But, I do reserve the right to ramble on anyhow, with the help of the aforementioned "spirit within" that not only are the concepts put forth in this book "true" but that they are, in fact, essential to the progress out of the "human condition." How do I define the "human condition?" Well, let's just say it ain't pretty. It sort of looks to me (now that I'm in my advanced years), that everything we do we do backwards. The word "evil" is the word "live" backwards. This may be a clue.

This book is called "Beyond B.S." We all have the reference, I assume, that B.S. stands for a certain bovine excrement and a certain affinity of people to put forth that which may not be completely accurate or true. Or, in this case, I'm using it in terms of B.S. standing for "Belief Systems" because that particular B.S. has us all by the short hairs. Biblically speaking "It shall be done to you as you believe" is one thing I find quite mystifying, as I've generally believed some things that have never come true. But, I also realize there must be a kink in my think, for (according to certain teachings like "The Secret" and others), the Universe is like one big Xerox machine, and what we put out we get back, in kind. What does this mean, exactly? Well, that's basically the whole leaning and looking at going on in this book.

The book actually does have a point, does have an agenda, and I want you to be prepared for that. Get your resistance up, you might need it if you're gonna hold on to that which you hold so dear, whether or not it is working for you or against you: your B.S.'s.

Hang on to your hats, it's gonna be a bumpy ride. One of the first conditions of the human condition is that very little change happens while things are going well, and even less when things are going really well. But, we are now coming to a place on our planet where we've screwed things up so thoroughly that some "change gotta come." And, of course, the first thing we have to change and adapt is ourselves, so here we go: let's take a good, hard, long look at ourselves (me not excluded).

I believe (you don't have to) that we have had a long period of experimentation so that we might learn what not to do. But, we've gotten somewhat caught up in the "motion of the ocean" of the momentum and confusion we've not only been taught but may have been "tricked" into believing. We may be now coming to what's been called a "level change" where everything and everyone is "reassigned" according to what level of consciousness we've attained.

I, myself, have some directions of beingness I'd rather not go in: I don't particularly want to evolve in the direction of the Ferengi (you know, those totally materially-oriented, big-eared ugly guys from Star Trek, The Next Generation ); I don't particularly want to become Vulcan (where everything is logic, with no feeling). I don't care to be androidic, like Data, with incredible intelligence and speed, but clueless to the finer points of being human, like humor and general feelability. I guess the position on the Starship Enterprise I'd most like to hold would be Ship's Counselor (like the lovely Deanna Troi), where sensing emotional states, differentiating between those telling the truth (or those believing they're telling the truth) and those lying through their teeth, and in general putting forth the best in feminine vibes and abilities comes as natural as breathing. (That's if I can't be Q, of course, who can go anywhere, create anything, and is a part of the "Continuum"). It probably would be very tempting to "play with" humans if you had that much knowledge, power and overview.

So, forward, onward, tally ho and all that, and if you make it, see you at the end. We'll have a last chapter called "Satisfaction", hopefully not the Stones "I can't get no." If you get disgusted with me (or yourself for looking at yourself in the mirror and not getting a favorable reflection), don't fret. You'll have plenty of chances for changes from other sources. After all, growing in consciousness or going backward are the only choices. It's basically the only game in town.

As we know from the Universe, everything is in constant motion, from atoms to galaxies. We are the ones who sometimes like things to "remain the same" which is basically an impossibility, not to mention not necessarily a desired state. I have had it put succinctly to me like this: ascend or ass end. Might be true, might not be. As Jeff Probst, the host of Survivor, is so fond of saying "Immunity's back up for grabs." What is immunity? You can't be voted out of the tribe.

Thanks for foreplaying with me. Let's get on to the nitty-gritty that will, hopefully, result in an orgasm of consciousness that will take us both where we want to go and need to be. See you on the other side.

I'm calling this "Author's Foreplay" in the hopes that the name alone will get you to read it. I find that I often don't bother to read a "foreward" or a "preface", or some such other word that means "read this first, because it has something to explain about what is herein following. So here it is my version of the beginning of a book.

Something I want you to understand about me and me writing this book: I am getting help. I am getting "inspiration" (defined as "in spirit" or "spirit within"). I am going to be using a lot of "definitions", most of which are from Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, circa 1984, which is the one I happen to have on hand. The reason for doing this is to bypass some of the confusion caused by "semantics", which I construe to mean "I heard what word you used, but do we have the same point of reference with regard to what that word means?" So, a definition of the word itself, where it comes from (like Latin, French, Greek, etc.) may be helpful in getting me, the writer, and you, the reader, on the same page. (Oh, Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood…).

Yeah, another thing I'm going to be using is song titles and song lyrics. I, like most people, relate to the music I heard and loved as I was growing up, in the full bloom and vigor of youth (which I have to say, is something I dearly miss). Being a child of the "first generation of rock 'n roll", I am very happy to have experienced the full gamut of music as it came out, from "Rock Around the Clock", to the early Elvis (who in my book is especially memorable for giving me my first sexual stirrings while watching him on Ed Sullivan) in the Fifties, to the music that ushered in and came with the "consciousness-expanding" era that was the Sixties, to the still-great music of the Seventies (as is witnessed by its continuation in today's movies and commercials) to who knows what or when. I may even throw in some disco references, as I loved to dance, therefore loved disco. I find that the people who proclaimed disco to "suck" either didn't know how or didn't want to embarrass themselves on the dance floor - a personal observation. If you're one of those, please excuse my generalization - it's another thing I'm going to be doing a lot of.

As an observer of and participant in the "human condition", I've come to some observational conclusions which you may or may not agree with. But that's okay, we can and should agree to disagree (or not). But, as the author-at-the-keyboard of this here book, I get to state my views. Should you want to state yours, you'll just have to write your own book. Not a bad idea, actually, because it really makes you get into your head and heart, your ego and id, your beliefs and knowings, of which there can be a big gap between.

Another thing I seriously want you to grok (from Robert Heinlein's incredibly influential book of the Sixties: Stranger in a Strange Land(to "grok" meaning to understand fully), I am not necessarily "there." Where? Well, so highly enlightened that I have the right to be telling you what's what and what's not what. But, I do reserve the right to ramble on anyhow, with the help of the aforementioned "spirit within" that not only are the concepts put forth in this book "true" but that they are, in fact, essential to the progress out of the "human condition." How do I define the "human condition?" Well, let's just say it ain't pretty. It sort of looks to me (now that I'm in my advanced years), that everything we do we do backwards. The word "evil" is the word "live" backwards. This may be a clue.

This book is called "Beyond B.S." We all have the reference, I assume, that B.S. stands for a certain bovine excrement and a certain affinity of people to put forth that which may not be completely accurate or true. Or, in this case, I'm using it in terms of B.S. standing for "Belief Systems" because that particular B.S. has us all by the short hairs. Biblically speaking "It shall be done to you as you believe" is one thing I find quite mystifying, as I've generally believed some things that have never come true. But, I also realize there must be a kink in my think, for (according to certain teachings like "The Secret" and others), the Universe is like one big Xerox machine, and what we put out we get back, in kind. What does this mean, exactly? Well, that's basically the whole leaning and looking at going on in this book.

The book actually does have a point, does have an agenda, and I want you to be prepared for that. Get your resistance up, you might need it if you're gonna hold on to that which you hold so dear, whether or not it is working for you or against you: your B.S.'s.

Hang on to your hats, it's gonna be a bumpy ride. One of the first conditions of the human condition is that very little change happens while things are going well, and even less when things are going really well. But, we are now coming to a place on our planet where we've screwed things up so thoroughly that some "change gotta come." And, of course, the first thing we have to change and adapt is ourselves, so here we go: let's take a good, hard, long look at ourselves (me not excluded).

I believe (you don't have to) that we have had a long period of experimentation so that we might learn what not to do. But, we've gotten somewhat caught up in the "motion of the ocean" of the momentum and confusion we've not only been taught but may have been "tricked" into believing. We may be now coming to what's been called a "level change" where everything and everyone is "reassigned" according to what level of consciousness we've attained.

I, myself, have some directions of beingness I'd rather not go in: I don't particularly want to evolve in the direction of the Ferengi (you know, those totally materially-oriented, big-eared ugly guys from Star Trek, The Next Generation ); I don't particularly want to become Vulcan (where everything is logic, with no feeling). I don't care to be androidic, like Data, with incredible intelligence and speed, but clueless to the finer points of being human, like humor and general feelability. I guess the position on the Starship Enterprise I'd most like to hold would be Ship's Counselor (like the lovely Deanna Troi), where sensing emotional states, differentiating between those telling the truth (or those believing they're telling the truth) and those lying through their teeth, and in general putting forth the best in feminine vibes and abilities comes as natural as breathing. (That's if I can't be Q, of course, who can go anywhere, create anything, and is a part of the "Continuum"). It probably would be very tempting to "play with" humans if you had that much knowledge, power and overview.

So, forward, onward, tally ho and all that, and if you make it, see you at the end. We'll have a last chapter called "Satisfaction", hopefully not the Stones "I can't get no." If you get disgusted with me (or yourself for looking at yourself in the mirror and not getting a favorable reflection), don't fret. You'll have plenty of chances for changes from other sources. After all, growing in consciousness or going backward are the only choices. It's basically the only game in town.

As we know from the Universe, everything is in constant motion, from atoms to galaxies. We are the ones who sometimes like things to "remain the same" which is basically an impossibility, not to mention not necessarily a desired state. I have had it put succinctly to me like this: ascend or ass end. Might be true, might not be. As Jeff Probst, the host of Survivor, is so fond of saying "Immunity's back up for grabs." What is immunity? You can't be voted out of the tribe.

Thanks for foreplaying with me. Let's get on to the nitty-gritty that will, hopefully, result in an orgasm of consciousness that will take us both where we want to go and need to be. See you on the other side.

Turning One eBook into Twenty Info Products or More

If you have read my earlier articles, Finding Niche Markets and The quick and easy way to produce ebooks then this very short article will greatly interest you. I'm now going to show you how to create twenty info products or more using a special method that is vastly underused but hugely profitable.

It's all about dominating niche markets and this is one way you can do that. What you do is create a generic ebook for your niche then create multiple versions of the product aimed at areas of the niche For example if you created a product aimed at dogs the generic product would be aimed at all dogs, but the sub products could be aimed at poodles, labradors, bulldogs and so on. All you'd need to do is change the title and the introduction so it was aimed at a specific dog breed and you've got a unique product that can be marketed to a highly targeted niche.

Does that make sense? Let me give you another example. If you were to create a product on the subject of how to be a great teacher you could create a generic book, and then with a few changes aim separate books at people teaching maths, people teaching science, people teaching history and so on. The key here is to create a product that will benefit everyone in a niche, and then create ultra specific versions.

From this you then set up mini sites with specific long tailed keywords, more on this in later articles in my newsletter.

Product Creation Secrets - The Key To Creating A Successful, Profitable eBook

Product creation is one of the most important aspects of internet marketing. In order to be a recognised success, you need to have your own information products, in the form of eBooks. Many people go about creating their products the wrong way though. They make one fundamental error that ultimately contributes 100% to their downfall.

This one mistake is simply providing a poor quality product. A product that doesn't deliver on its promises. A product that fails to teach the reader what it should. Ultimately, a product that is worthless and a waste of the customers' hard earned money.

By producing a poor quality eBook, the publisher sacrifices the insane amount of profits they could be making in sales.

Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool, and without a quality product do you really think customers are going to recommend their friends and family? Do you think JV partners will want to promote your product? Do you think affiliates will join your affiliate programme and start generating you sales? Do you think anyone in their right mind will want to be associated with your product in any way whatsoever?

I'd be embarrassed to put my name on a low quality product, and hopefully, you would be to… so don't!

Creating a quality product takes no longer than it would if you were to create a poor eBook, so get it right from the start and make your product stand out from the endless amount of other products already available.