Been doing some research on copyright..

Did a little research on copyright today.  Thought it was interesting to find out that works are protected from the moment they're created... so I actually can claim copyright on my book right now if I wanted to.  From what I read, works don't have to be registered, unless you want protection in the case of copyright infringement, so I probably will register my book once I get ready to actually publish it.  There were also some interesting FAQ's on the the site, feel free to check them out: Copyright FAQs

Another great site for writers!

Found another great site for writers called Write On Purpose - looks like it has a lot of great resources and information for writers.  Just one thing though, if you try to join for free you may get a page that says it can't find what you're looking for.  I've let the site owner know about the problem though. 

Changes coming to my blog...

Going to be making some changes to my blog in the coming weeks.  Not sure if I'll make any physical changes, such as changing the layout, etc, but one thing I'll be doing in the near future is adding guest posts to my blog.  Yesterday I signed up with MyBlogGuest, and I'll be looking there for some guest bloggers, as well as asking people that I've met since I started writing my e-book.  If you've written and published an e-book and want to share your story on my bog, please let me know!

What I accomplished on my e-book and e-book marketing progress for the week of 5/13/13 - 5/19/13

Though I didn't do much work on my actual e-book this week, I did work a bit on my e-book marketing efforts, especially where this blog is concerned... as I mentioned in a previous post, I read a great book about SEO, and learned a lot of things that I hope will help me increase exposure for this blog, and hopefully also for my e-book's product page once I put my e-book up for sale on Amazon.  Here are a few things I've done this week:

• Finally was able to get Google to index this blog - Now, if you go to Google and type in "My Journey to Become a Self-Published Author," this blog will come up. 
• Started a list of links to useful tools for writers - this isn't really related to e-book marketing, but hopefully it will help other writers who read this blog.

Looking forward to hopefully getting back to working on my actual e-book a little bit this week! 

Been Educating Myself on SEO

Have been educating myself a little bit on search engine optimization (SEO) today - at the suggestion of a friend I downloaded a report from The Keyword Academy called "How to Really Make $5,000 per Month Online" and read through it.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to make money with this blog, in fact I can't because I'm not able to sign up for Google Adsense in North Carolina - but it did give me some good ideas on how to find keywords to use in my e-book.  One thing that I had to do was sign up for a free 7-day trial of a site called Keyword Project Manager, which helps you organize and analyze potential keywords you might want to use in blog posts, or in my case my e-book.  As a matter of fact, as I write this post KPM is currently analyzing a list of keywords.  Not sure if I'll keep the membership after the 7-day trial, I may ask around and see if some of my other blogger/writer friends think it's worth keeping.  I also downloaded a book from Amazon called SEO 2013, hoping that gives me some good information on SEO.  Other than that, progress on my e-book project has kind of stalled this week, been very busy working at my other jobs (the ones that actually make money :) ).  Hope to get back to is this coming week.

More Excellent Reads for Those Who Want To Publish a Kindle E-book.

Read two more excellent books about publishing Kindle e-books, "Price Rich" and "The Black Bible," both by Von Money.  This post will provide a little more information on both books.

• Price Rich - This Von Money book contains a lot of great advice not included in other e-books I mentioned previously, or advice that's contrary to what other books I've read have advised. For example, in one book that I read, "How to Publish a Best-Seller on Amazon," Nicholas Black advises against pricing books at less than 2.99 because the royalties are smaller - 35% for books priced at less than 2.99 vs. 70% for books priced 2.99 and up.  This is good advice, but one point that Von Money mentions is that if your book is priced higher and isn't selling many copies, you may make more money if you price your book lower and more people buy it.  Von Money also mentions a few resources in this book that I didn't know existed.  For example, at Gimp.org you can download free software to create your own book cover.  I have downloaded this software, but am currently still figuring out how to use it to create a book cover. 
• The Black Bible - This Von Money book is the sequel to Price Rich.  It contains more advice on how to write an e-book that will sell, and also  mentions some other resources to take advantage of.  It again mentions the gimp.org software, and in addition he mentions a few other valuable resources, such as the Cover Creator application that KDP launched on April 3.  He also suggests taking advantage of the Amazon Affiliate program as a way to make extra money - this will help you make extra money on your e-books, as well as other Amazon products. If you have a website, you can place affiliate links for products that you mention on your website, and if visitors to your website buy the products using your links, you'll get a 6% cut. I did check out Amazon Associates and try to register, however it's not available in my state of North Carolina.  

E-Book progress for the week of 4/29/13 - 5/5/13

Here's what I accomplished this week - haven't done much in the way of writing, but did do a few other things that  may help with my e-book:

• Read two more great e-books about writing and publishing e-books, Price Rich and The Black Bible, both by Von Money.  Both contained information that I think will be very valuable as I go through the process of writing my first e-book.  Will be doing a separate post with information about both books.
• Downloaded Gimp software, which was recommended by Von Money in both e-books as a great way to design an e-book cover.  Still trying to get used to the software, seems a bit complicated. 
• Checked out Amazon Associates, which Von Money recommended in one of his e-books (can't remember which one) as a way to make additional money not only on books I've written, but also on books I've read and other products I've bought from Amazon - unfortunately the program isn't available in North Carolina. 
• Checked out CreateSpace, which has been mentioned in a few of the e-books I've read, as well as in a few writing groups I'm in, as another way to make extra money on my books.  Might be a good way to make extra money on them, as well as have an actual hard copy of my book for myself, as well as a few copies for friends and family.  

That's it for this week! Stay tuned for next week's update...