Writing and Self-Publishing section added to bookstore

August 24, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 4 Comments
Filed under: Act On Your Dream!, Affiliate Marketing, Books, Lulu, Marketing, Promote Yourself, Self-Publishing, Writing 

Ever since I read Make Your Knowledge Sell! several years ago, I’ve known that I wanted to write a series of reports and ebooks with several goals in mind…

  • To share the knowledge I’ve learned over years of researching affiliate marketing and from the daily practice of it
  • To enhance my reputation as being someone with integrity who offers good advice about online marketing
  • To provide information that will help you avoid the pitfalls I’ve traversed and to make more money with affiliate marketing
  • To do more of something I enjoy doing: writing

About a thousand years ago, Nicki Fink and I wrote a textbook we used for teaching our students how to use Macintosh computers and several of the more popular applications that were in use at the time.

Knowing nothing about writing a book, we just did it.

Our first couple of editions were printed on a laser printer and we did all the collation and comb-binding ourselves.

When we finally approached a publisher, we had a pretty good book that was helping our students learn how to use Macs by completing a series of projects.

I submitted the entire book to Addison Wesley and instead of getting a rejection notice, as everyone had advised me to expect, we got an offer from Addison Wesley and Benjamin Cummings.

Addison Wesley wanted to get it into print quickly and Benjamin Cummings wanted a complete rewrite along with reviews by several colleges and academies before publishing it.

We made the mistake of going with Benjamin Cummings and added about another year to the project in addition to having several disagreements with the editor about the direction we wanted to go with the book.

Eventually the book was published and we received a few thousand dollars in advance royalties.

I was happy to have a published book that was helping some people learn how to use their Macs better, but the entire experience was less than satisfactory. I swore that the next book I wrote would be self-published.

Now, in the 21st century, a lot of things have changed. Books and reports can be released as ebooks and offered in downloadable PDF format. Tools and applications for doing this are becoming more popular and affordable.

Additionally, if you take the time to format that PDF ebook correctly, you can have it printed and sold at places like Lulu.com, CafePress.com, and many other print-on-demand publishers.

(I’ve started a Lulu.com storefront where I’ll be promoting reports, ebooks, and books in the coming months, as I have time to research and write them. Currently, there is one free downloadable copy of my Act On Your Dream! newsletter.)

Since writing and self-publishing have moved up higher on my to-do list, I researched these topics on Amazon.com this evening. As a result, I’ve added a new section to my Amazon store for Writing and Self-Publishing Books.

I have an older copy of Dan Poynter’s Self-Publishing Manual and I’m looking forward to buying and reading his latest edition.

Most people who dream of being a writer don’t know that writing is only one part of the job. Perhaps more important than writing a good book is promoting and publicizing it. If nobody knows about it, you won’t sell very many copies!

I added a few books about writing non-fiction, but most of the books in the new section are about promoting, publicizing, and networking. After all, if you’re reading this blog, you’re probably interested in affiliate marketing and other topics related to online marketing, so I’m sure you will find books of interest in this new section of my bookstore.

I’m always interested in your comments and recommendations. If you know of an excellent book about writing, self-publishing, or promoting books, I hope you’ll share with us.

Act on your dream!

JD

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New marketing books added to my bookstore

August 24, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Books, Marketing 

As you may know, I’ve been an Amazon.com affiliate since shortly after they introduced the program way back in the 20th century.

One of the main ways I promote books and other products from Amazon these days is through my John Dilbeck’s Amazon Store.

Today, I added about a dozen books to the Blogging and Internet Marketing Books section of the store. You can see this section by clicking on the link under the Browse By Category menu in the right column of the store.

How do I select new books for the store?

I only add specific books to the store if…

  • I have read them and would recommend them highly, even if I weren’t paid to do it
  • The book has been recommended to me by someone I have come to trust and I plan to purchase it, read it, and put into action what it recommends
  • The majority of ratings for the book on Amazon are either 5 or 4 stars.

I spend quite a bit of time looking at new books, but the great majority of them will never make it into my bookstore. As I’ve said elsewhere, “if it’s not good enough for me, it’s not good enough for you.”

I try to put the best books on page one of my bookstore, but there is only enough room for nine books, so some really good books slide to page two and subsequent pages. I added several books to page one, today.

You’ll also find newly-added books on the last page of the main section.

My philosophy on buying business books is this…

If I can earn back at least twice what I paid for the book in additional revenues, then it was well worth the money and time reading it. If I can earn back twice the price I paid, then, with more work, I can earn back several or many times the cost of the book, by putting into practice what I learned from it and by adding it to my bookstore so you can buy it, too.

I looked at about 40 books today and added a little over a dozen new books to the store.

I’m looking forward to reading them as soon as I can make the time.

Come on in and browse

I hope you’ll consider the books I recommend in my bookstore.

Act on you dream!

JD

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Is Squidoo another blogging platform?

August 18, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 4 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Marketing, RSS Syndication, Social Networking, Squidoo Lenses, Squidoo Marketing, Twitter 

Aussie Sire asked a question on one of my twitter update posts and suggested that I rewrite my reply as a blog post. I think that’s a great idea.

He said:

Hi John, I had a look at your Squidoo page and I must say it is very impressive. I have heard of Squidoo and lenses and such but never really looked into them. It seems like another blogging platform but I assume there is a difference?

Hi Sire, thanks for the kind words about my Squidoo page for this blog:

21st Century Affiliate Marketing

Squidoo is not a blogging platform, but it works well with blogs. I try to build a Squidoo lens for each of my blogs for one specific reason: I can syndicate the RSS feed on the lens and Google likes Squidoo lenses. That means that some people may find my blog indirectly via the lens I create on Squidoo.

Squidoo is more of a simple webpage builder and they call each page a lens because the object is to focus on a single topic per page.

You may understand Squidoo a bit more if you read my lens at:

Marketing With Squidoo

That lens syndicates the feed from this blog, my social networking community for Squidoo lensmasters who enjoy marketing, and my blog specifically about marketing with Squidoo.

It also links to other lenses that have information about marketing using Squidoo.

You can build as many (or as few) lenses as you want and it’s always free. In fact, if you build lenses that attract visitors and get clicks, you can earn money from your lenses. Some very few people earn over $1,000 per month; a few dozen lensmasters earn around $100 per month; and most of us earn less than that. Your earnings come from sharing with Squidoo the commissions from Adsense and Glam ads on your lens.

I get a welcome deposit from Squidoo into my PayPal account every month.

Since you already have several blogs, perhaps you could start by building a lens about the main topic of one of your blogs.

You can get started here:

Join Squidoo and start building your own lenses.

But, I earn much more than the payment I get directly from Squidoo, because I promote affiliate links on my lenses and don’t have to share the proceeds from those commissions with Squidoo.

I also promote my CafePress shop on a few of my lenses and link back to some of my websites on other lenses.

So, I use Squidoo both as a traffic generator and as another profit center. It’s also great at cross-promoting lenses, blogs, forums, websites, social networking sites, and other web presences that share common themes and topics.

If you have a blog and you’d like Google to pay more attention, you may want to build a lens about the blog’s main topic and syndicate your RSS feed on the lens. You can also recommend books and other products from Amazon.com.

You can even recommend products from CafePress without having to join their affiliate program, but you’ll be sharing the commissions with Squidoo. It’s worth it because the CafePress module makes it so easy to promote the products you like on CafePress. There are thousands of shopkeepers selling their designs on CafePress and you can select from millions of product/design combinations.

Once a lens is built, it doesn’t take a lot of work to keep it current, and your blog’s feed is automatically updated on the lens on a schedule you can choose, i.e. every hour, every six hours, etc.

Another thing you can do to build interactivity into your lens is to add a guestbook, set up polls, start a duel (conversation/argument), and there are other modules that are of interest, too.

There are a lot of things you can do with Squidoo easily that are more difficult on a blog. I think the two of them work very well together.

Again, you can learn more, if you’re still interested at:

Marketing With Squidoo

I hope that helps you get the idea of what you can do with Squidoo.

One other lens you may want to visit is my lensography, where I write about my lenses, link to some of my blogs, show my Twitter tweets, and more:

Who is John Dilbeck?

If you have any other questions, I’d be happy to do my best to answer them or refer you to another site with the answers.

I almost forgot. There is a social networking aspect to Squidoo where you can meet other highly-motivated lensmasters and help cross-promote each others’ sites, lenses, and blogs.

For example every time you add a quality comment to another lensmaster’s lens, you’ll get a link back to your lensmaster page.

Then there is the ability for a visitor to your site to join your fan club. Whenever you post a SquidCast about your lens, people in your fan club and anyone who has marked that lens as their favorite will see the SquidCast on their favorites page at Squidoo.

You can even get a chicklet to show how many fans you have and it links to your lensmaster page:

A lens is like a blog in one respect. Each time you publish your lens (after the initial build or whenever it is updated), you can send what is called a SquidCast, but which is really a posting that is added to the lens’ RSS feed. Then you can ping that update to spread the word among the large RSS aggregators.

Of course, the SquidCast is also shown on the favorites page of your fans and the people who favorited that lens. It is also promoted on the Squidcast Twitter feed.

So, there are a lot of reasons to include Squidoo as an integral part of your marketing mix, even if you are a blogger or webmaster, already.

And, don’t forget, you don’t have to join Squidoo because you want to make money. You can build your lenses on the topics of your choice, so tell your stories, publish your poems, or show photos of your kids and pets.

Are you an expert on something? Build your own Squidoo lens and tell the world. It’s free, and you may even earn some money from it.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Do you have a blog at SquidTop.com?

August 5, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Blogging, Marketing, Promote Yourself, Squidoo Lenses, Squidoo Marketing, WordPress 

Earlier this morning, I learned about SquidTop.com.

According to the SquidTop lens, Squidtop – Blogs for Squidoo Lensmasters, “Squidtop is a blog platform built on the WordPress system that allows squidoo lensmasters to create their own blogs to promote themselves, their projects, and their lenses.”

Well, that sounds just like me. I love promoting myself, my projects, and my lenses, so I immediately signed up for a new blog there: Marketing with Squidoo.

Since it is so new, there isn’t much there yet, but there will be as time allows and inspiration motivates.

Marketing with Squidoo will be concerned with marketing with Squidoo lenses, specifically. There may be a little overlap now and then with this blog.

I’ll be promoting my Squidoo lenses and our Squidoo Marketing Community on the new blog.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Are you in the Triiibe?

August 2, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Business Networking, Marketing, Social Networking 

Seth Godin, marketing genius, online entrepreneur, and founder of Squidoo.com, has opened a new social networking site, and membership is by invitation only, at this point.

He has now opened it for another round of participants.

You can get the information on his blog in this post: Are you in the tribe?

He has an interesting way to qualify new members and to keep out the tire-kickers.

I followed the steps a couple of days ago and was invited to join the Triiibe. (Yes, that’s three “i”s in the name. He has an interesting explanation, in that it takes at least three people to become a group, and that the domain he wanted was already taken.)

The Triiibe is hosted on Ning.com, a site that I really like and which hosts my Squidoo Marketing community. (If you use Squidoo as part of your marketing mix, you’re invited to join us there.)

When I made it into Triiibe, I found almost 1,000 other people interested in the same topics I am, which include leadership, tribe building, marketing, and so forth.

I’m trying to catch up on some of the conversations and I’ve met some interesting new people and was happy to see some of my friends there, too.

Seth is on to something here, and if you’re interested, don’t let pre-purchasing his next book stop you from joining the Triiibe.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Should you tweet your blog?

July 22, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Squidoo Lenses, Twitter 

I’ve been thinking a lot about Twitter.com lately. The better I fine tune the people I’m following, the more useful information and interactions that I get from my friends on Twitter.

I followed quite a few people, and now I’m pruning the ones that don’t really match my interests.

I’ve been trying to tweet more often, but I don’t really want to say anything unless I think it may be useful for the people who follow me.

When Squidoo added a feature that lets us tweet when we update a lens, I started using that as judiciously as I could. I certainly don’t tweet every time I update a lens. I do try to tweet the release of a new lens, however.

Then, I learned about Tweet My Blog, a new plug-in and widget recently released by John Merrick and Soren Jordansen.

I downloaded and installed it on this blog and everything was smooth and easy to do.

So, I’m testing it here, but haven’t decided if it should earn a permanent home, yet.

In order to get more feedback and opinions, I created a new Should you tweet your blog? lens on Squidoo.

If you are interested in tweeting about new blog posts, I hope you’ll take a few minutes and visit the lens. I would appreciate any feedback you’d care to make.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Squidoo Marketing community re-opened on Ning.com

June 27, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Social Networking, Squidoo Groups, Squidoo Lenses 

I just re-opened the Squidoo Marketing Community on Ning.com.

As you may know, I created six communities and worked on them for half-a-year before I had to close them.

Of all the them, I believe the Squidoo Marketing network may be the most useful and flexible, so I am in the process of recreating it and I’m paying the monthly fee for premium service and control of the advertising. Now, we’re able to link to what we want, as long as it is related to marketing with Squidoo.

Come read my latest blog post on the community to learn more about why I made this decision.

Why did I re-open this Squidoo Marketing community?

I hope to see you there.

Act on your dream!

JD

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New lens for our Squidoo Marketing Community on Squidoo.com

March 16, 2008 by John Dilbeck · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Business Networking, Communities, Lenses, Marketing, Squidoo Lenses 

I recently created a new lens for our Squidoo Marketing Community at Squidoo.com.

Its purpose is to syndicate a couple of RSS feeds from our new Squidoo Marketing social networking site. The new lens republishes the Latest Activities feed toward the top and the Forum feed toward the bottom.

Additionally, you are invited to vote in our poll and participate in the duel.

You’ll need to be a Squidoo lensmaster to participate, and you can become one for free. I recommend Squidoo and have numerous lenses there with more on the drawing board.

Are you an expert on something? Build your own Squidoo lens and tell the world. It’s free, and you may even earn some money from it.

Please feel free to link to the new lens at:

http://www.squidoo.com/squidoo-marketing-community

I look forward to seeing your feedback on the lens and please – if you want – rank the lens (5 stars is best) and offer your comments in the duel or the comments section at the bottom of the lens.

You’ll note that the people who are participating the most on our new social network are the ones who are getting mentioned the most on our new lens.

How easy is that?

All you have to do is participate on our social networking site. I’ll be republishing those feeds on other sites I own. That means that there will be more links to your profile page as you participate more and as I have the time to syndicate the news feeds on more sites.

Can you think of something I should add to the new lens to make it more useful? All suggestions are welcome.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Calling all Squidoo lensmasters

March 11, 2008 by John Dilbeck · 1 Comment
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Communities, Marketing, Social Networking, Squidoo Lenses 

Are you a lensmaster on Squidoo?

If you are, I’m inviting you to join a new social networking site for Squidoo marketing, where our goal is to help each other do a better job of creating lenses that are used for marketing.

Want to increase the revenue you earn from your lenses? Come and talk about them. Attract new visitors. Learn new techniques and share your own.

Want to become a Squidoo lensmaster?

Everyone is an expert on something. Squidoo provides an easy way to build one-page websites called lenses that you can use to focus attention on a particular subject that you know and love.

It’s free, and Squidoo even shares any revenue they earn from your lens with you. There are many of us who get a monthly deposit from Squidoo into our PayPal accounts. I just got a deposit into mine a couple of days ago. You can, too.

Are you an expert on something?

Build your own Squidoo lens and tell the world. It’s free, of course.

Then, come join us at the Squidoo marketing community.

We’ll help each other become better lensmasters.

Act on your dream!

JD

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