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Well it’s been a fast-paced start to the year and I just noticed I haven’t blogged for a few months..oops.

This has mainly been down to focusing on building the Internet Pie brand with the book and membership but I’ve also been doing a lot of Kindle research and testing out some ninja tactics.

This is all part of my big idea.

I think it’s essential to any kind of success to have a big idea that defines where you are going, what your roadmap plan is and where you want to be. Sounds obvious but very much overlooked by so many.

I made the mistake, many times, of taking on too many projects and not giving any any one of them my full undivided attention. This just ends in lukewarm results and you soon get frustrated, besides why not create something of quality?

There is so much crap been pumped out on the web it’s frightening. Whether it’s a product, a book or a service by stepping back and asking yourself whether the end user is getting their money’s worth you can make a huge difference to your reputation as well as your bottom line.

Yes I intend to focus on my big ideas a lot more this year and not get bogged down in crap and details.

What’s your big idea in 2012?

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Big Ideas in 2012 originally appeared on Online Marketing Intelligence on January 31, 2012.

This opens up exciting opportunities to create great Kindle books that readers will love. Rich formatting and design will greatly benefit children’s picture books, comics & graphic novels, technical & engineering books and cookbooks.

Amazon said it will release details about how to use KF8 “soon” and interested designers and publishers can sign up on Amazon’s Web site to be notified when more info is released.

Though Amazon are retiring Mobi in favor of KF8, existing Mobi files will still work with the updated format.

KindleGen 2 will convert your content so that it works on all Kindle devices and apps. You will be able to preview how your title will look on the range of Kindle devices and apps using Kindle Previewer 2.

This is an exciting development that bodes well for developing great content!

Related posts:

1. Publishing for the Amazon Kindle – Part 3 – Uploading to Kindle Marketplace In the last Blog Post of this series we converted...
2. Publishing for the Amazon Kindle – Part 1 – Preparing your Content In this series of posts looking at Publish on Demand,...
3. Publishing for the Amazon Kindle – Part 2 – Converting with Mobipocket Part 1 of this series looked at preparing your word...

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Amazon adds HTML5 Spice to the Kindle Format originally appeared on Online Marketing Intelligence on October 25, 2011.

Today we can upload the file to the Kindle Marketplace.

Head over to http://www.kindledirectpublishing.com and sign in with your Amazon account or sign up if you don’t have one.

Firstly fill out your account details so Amazon know how to pay you under ‘Your Account’

Then click on Bookshelf and ‘Add a new title’

Fill out the book details; Title, description etc

Do not add an ISBN as KDP will give you an ebook number free of charge, unless you have a specific reason to. Publication date can be left blank if you want your title to be evergreen.

Most of you will want to choose 2^nd option for Publishing Rights.

Add categories and search keywords. Don’t rush this, it’ll help people find you more easily.

Upload your book cover

Digital rights management.
Some authors want to encourage readers to share their work, and choose not to have DRM applied to their book. If you choose DRM, customers will still be able to lend the book to another user for a short period, and can also purchase the book as a gift for another user from the Kindle store.

If you choose DRM, customers will be able to lend the book to another user for a short period, and can also purchase the book as a gift for another user from the Kindle store.

Click browse for book and upload the mobi file you created.

Then click save as draft or publish!

To find out more about building an ebook and informational publishing business:
Buy the Internet Pie Book Here
Click Here to Sign up for Your Internet Pie Newsletter and get a free report (inc this blog series)

Related posts:

1. Publishing for the Amazon Kindle – Part 2 – Converting with Mobipocket Part 1 of this series looked at preparing your word...
2. Publishing for the Amazon Kindle – Part 1 – Preparing your Content In this series of posts looking at Publish on Demand,...
3. The Rise and Rise of the Ebook The ebook has well and truly arrived with sales elipsing...

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Publishing for the Amazon Kindle – Part 3 – Uploading to Kindle Marketplace originally appeared on Online Marketing Intelligence on September 14, 2011.

This part is looking at converting the document to the required .mobi format.

Step 1: Kindle Desktop reader

To check your ebook you’ll also need Amazon’s Kindle Reader for desktops:

Go to Amazon.com, look under shop all departments and roll over the Kindle link until you see ‘Free Kindle Reading Apps’

Depending on what you’re using choose Windows PC or Mac

Download and install. This is to test that your Kindle book looks ok on their platform.

Step 2: MobiPocket

Let’s now head over to mobipocket.com. Scroll down until you see Free downloads (or click here)

On the next screen there are download options. Download the Publisher Edition (below)

Next open a window where your word document is and pull it alongside the mobipocket screen, as below, then just drag the word document onto the red book icon.

(Note you could turn your word document into a PDF before this stage and import that as well)

Then click import on the following screen:

From now on you’ll work with the Mobipocket version.You should keep the original safe in case you ever want to go back and make changes.

Assuming your file is correctly formatted you should get through to the next screen. On the view stack there are different links which you’ll need to go through.

So let’s click on Cover Image and upload that first. You can either drag the cover from the window folder, as we did with the word document over onto the ‘add a cover’ button or click the ‘add a cover’ button and browse for the cover. Then click update.

Next click on table of contents in the view stack.

This is where you set the contents to be the H1 headers that we put in the word document earlier.

Click add table of contents’ and add ‘h1′ to the first level field and click update as below:

Next click Build

Hopefully you’ll have no errors but if you do mobipocket will tell you. If you do click ‘show build details’.

Any errors will have yellow warning symbols: read these to see what the issue is. Typical problems might be hyperlinks not resolved, images or other data not specified at an earlier stage.

When you are happy click ok.

Mobipocket will open the folder containing the kindle book.

Check your ebook

Double clicking on the ebook symbol should automatically open it in the Kindle reading software.

Next: Uploading your ebook to the Kindle Direct Publishing platform.

This tutorial and much more is available as a special report: >>

Your Internet Pie: Publish your expertise on the Amazon Kindle and Apple iPad for Free..

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1. Publishing for the Amazon Kindle – Part 1 – Preparing your Content In this series of posts looking at Publish on Demand,...
2. The Rise and Rise of the Ebook The ebook has well and truly arrived with sales elipsing...

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Publishing for the Amazon Kindle – Part 2 – Converting with Mobipocket originally appeared on Online Marketing Intelligence on September 12, 2011.

Step 1: Preparing your Word Document

When you have written your content in Word you’ll want to re-save a copy renamed specifically for the Kindle edition as we’ll need to do a bit of reworking for ebook formats.

Chapter Headings

All chapter headings should be highlighted and made to be Heading 1. This is what the Kindle software uses to create the Table of Contents.

Images

Kindle will only display images in black and white but you’ll need to compress them.

Double click on the images in your document and click compress.

Fonts

Select all and change to either Times New Roman 12pt or Arial 11pt.

Headers Footers and Page numbering

If you already have these on your document you’ll need to delete them as these are irrelevant for ebook editions (due to content flow)

Remove any existing table of contents as this will automatically be created.

Curley Quotes

Word automatically creates “pretty quotes” which need changing to “straight quotes”.

To turn off go to Tools > AutoCorrect options > Auto format as you type tab and untick

Be sure to change this back afterwards if you want to have fancy quotes in future documents.

Find and Replace all instances of curley quotes by going to

> Edit menu > Replace

In the Replace field type ” and then

” in the replace field

Then click Replace All.

Next: Converting your document to the required .mobi format

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Publishing for the Amazon Kindle – Part 1 – Preparing your Content originally appeared on Online Marketing Intelligence on September 10, 2011.

Sandeep Menon, head of small business marketing, opened the afternoon session with some facts and figures on how the UK is leading the way in the digital economy (£100bn pa over 7% GDP) and #1 country for e-commerce which I didn’t realise. There’s loads on great info for stat junkies over at Connected Kingdom.

I’m not going to delve too deeply here but just wanted to get some topline points across if you are using Adwords.

Relevance was hinted at been the most important factor for landing page quality score when planning your adwords campaigns. This’ll be of no surprise to adwords experts but organising your campaigns into relevant groups as well as naming them correctly is important.

So a campaign should separate out their ads into sections and relevant keywords for each ad group. Seperate and clearly name all campaigns (search, content, mobile)

• For ads on the search network it was suggested there are no more than 5-6 ad groups, between 5-20 keywords including negative keywords and 1-3 text ads.
• For text ad varieties ensure you change all the text, not just the first line and use the keyword insertion tool if you can.
• Don’t duplicate keywords and ad groups.
• Delete or pause what is not working as it affects your overall account performance

Improving CTR

• Raise your bids and look at improving your Quality Score
• Ensure ads have keywords in the headline
• Make sure your landing pages are RELEVANT to the keyword list

Future stuff: Adwords will soon enable you to just target tablets like the iPad, great for getting through to the more affulent. Also mobile ads will enable users to click and download straight from the ad text.

Many businesses have had a nasty taste in the mouth left from Google Adwords, many having had their accounts shut down without warning, or simply struggled with getting a decent CTR (Click through Rate). I can say that these concerns were certainly voiced at the end feedback Q and A session.

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An afternoon at the Google office originally appeared on Online Marketing Intelligence on July 25, 2011.

Mobile devices including  iphones, ipads, android smart phones, PC tablets, Barnes and Noble’s Nook readers are also opening up a huge market in this area.

Amazon triggered a snowball effect in terms of ebook popularity with the launch of the Kindle in 2007 which allows people to buy and download ebooks on demand from the Kindle marketplace, read them in any location and share this content on other devices.

The launch of the Apple iPad in 2009 brought the iBook app enabling ebook sales via the Apple family of products. Amazon released the Kindle app with effectively put all the Amazon book titles from the Kindle platform within reach of iPhone, iPad and iPod users who can download any book for the Amazon Kindle without needing the device itself.

Other ebook readers such as the Nook range of readers opened up the Barns and Noble marketplace with Sony and others joining the fray.

Why Publish?

• You establish yourself as an expert (Yes I know you’ve heard that before)
• You can use your book(s) as a lead generator for backend services and products
• It doesn’t have to be War and Peace – Guides, Reports, Whitepapers even a collection of blog posts can be published
• There may well be SEO benefits – think about how Amazon rank on Google

So how do you get a piece of this truly exciting development that is causing such a stir in the publishing and media world?

There are various platforms online that help you publish and deliver your content. You could go via publish on demand services which also offer physical book publishing and distribution.

Lulu is probably the most well know of POD (publish on demand) services with a range of add on support services such as marketing, proofreading, design and editing. Fastpencil offers a similiar route but with a unique book writing wizard that templates the process to produce professional standard book creation. Smashwords give authors a route to a wide range of platforms including the ipad, Nook, Kobo and soon the Kindle.

A more direct approach can be taken using the Kindle Direct Publishing Platform for Amazon’s digital marketplace or Nook’s PubIt!

Ebooks don’t always have to be lower priced items as information publishers already know and businesses sell high value information for as much as $249 such as this 12 page whitepaper from Ad age. The information is highly targeted involving a lot of data and that represents high value to buyers.

There are different approaches to digital publishing but in my next few blog posts I will focus on the mentioned devices and platforms such as the Kindle and Nook and how you can get your content out there ASAP!

Pick up my guide on Ebook Publishing here

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The Rise and Rise of the Ebook originally appeared on Online Marketing Intelligence on July 8, 2011.

Creating content based products and turning your expertise into a sellable product is also another very sensible approach. By creating and selling products you are moving away from the time vs money model which can limit your earnings (there are only so many hours in the day) towards selling your expertise in a tangible form (in unlimited amounts if possible!)

When you combine this two approaches a membership website is without doubt the delivery platform you need to be looking at. You can deliver your premium content to members who you can charge a weekly/monthly/yearly fee.

Many people who have an interest or hobby just want to interact with others who share that passion and they will be happy to pay you for the privilege! You can tap into this need by giving them somewhere to go and by building that community you can build a recurring income as your members share ideas, interact and build relationships with other like minded people.

Membership websites can cover many different subjects from Health and Fitness, Sports, Business expertise, Gardening,  Learning New Languages or skills, Stock Trading and much more.

If you are seriously thinking about building a membership website then you should certainly check out the Wishlist Membership Coaching (Aff link) that is available for a short time. This training shows you how to quickly build a membership website for maximum growth.

>> Wishlist Membership Training

Other passive income stream ideas that I have or am setting up include:

• Advertising revenue from your Blog(s)
• Selling guides or books through Amazon using Publish on Demand either as physical book or ebooks (can also double as a lead generator)
• Sell Audio and Video based Products
• Recommend other related products as an Affiliate and earn commissions

Find one area that suits you and build on it. It’s the best investment in yourself that you’ll ever make!

Photo by jeeheon

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Passive Income and Membership Sites originally appeared on Online Marketing Intelligence on June 20, 2011.

In fact the idea originally came from one of the audio modules from Lee McIntyre’s Passive Income Uncut I bought over six months ago.

So you have a series of repetitive tasks, it may be admin, setting something up, whatever. By taking screenshots and doing a step by step guide you create a document that can be handed to any virtual assistant, or anyone else in your company or employee coming into your business so that they can immediately start doing it.

It sounds obvious and many larger businesses do have this type of training in place.

I know I’ve recently been bogged down more and more with admin/boring tasks which has really put a dampner on my creativity and big picture mindset (which is one of my biggest strengths I believe) and what really prompted things was the fact that I now have to take leave of my business for a while due to family illness.

There are some tasks in our business that only I know how to do and some of which my business partners have never done before. So in the future what if I get ill? or want to go on an extensive vacation?

Here’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve started to create a series of step by step guides, with screenshots, covering a multitude of tasks within our business such as:

• Creating and testing an email campaign
• Documenting  tasks from our admin system such as adding hours to timesheets, raising invoices and keeping an eye on the workflow.
• Walkthroughs on adminstrating our web hosting business
• Certain SEO Reports and how to pull key data from Google Analytics and so forth.
• Answering Support Tickets
• Adding advertising banners and links to our blog network

So do you have anything like this in your business? What happens if you get ill? Can you just hand a series of guides over to someone to keep at least the vital elements of your business running?

This does of course all tie in with outsourcing in a big way if you are a one man/woman band.

There was a classic nightmare example of this recently when Internet Marketer Michelle MacPhearson got ill and things went badly wrong..you can download an audio interview about it from here.

It’s not something most people want to think about, but if things do go wrong, will you be ready?

Image by: powazn

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What happens to your business if things go wrong? originally appeared on Online Marketing Intelligence on April 8, 2011.

The Google blog says: “This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.”

According to Sistrix, an independent keyword and SERPS research company, the biggest five losers are:

• wisegeek.com
• ezinearticles.com
• suite101.com
• hubpages.com
• yourdictionary.com

Other sites listed that online marketers might be familiar with include articlesbase.com (down 94%) Slideshare.net (down 56%) and PRnewswire.com (-91%)

It’s worth noting that ehow.com has not been affected by the changes. Ehow.com even gained SISTRIX value (from 270 to 310) and Keywords (from 317,320 to 324,021) during the algorithm-change.

This update is currently only in the US but other countries will follow.

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Google Downgrade Content Sites originally appeared on Online Marketing Intelligence on February 28, 2011.