Business, economic development - the unofficial Chamber of Commerce

Fergus, a palomino colt at Simpson Farms, displays unusual talents. Besides twirling in the air and executing daring back flips, Fergus loves to play soccer. Bobby Simpson and his friend, Ramon, set up a goal in the pasture and let Fergus guard it while they practice penalty kicks and heading the ball. The agile colt blocks all their shots. He flicks the ball off his nose or whirls around and kicks it with his back feet.

Soon the local news, then CNN and other networks feature the golden goalkeeper. People flock to the farm to watch Fergus play with the boys. All the publicity boosts the popularity of soccer in the United States, drawing the attention of Ian Connor from the International Soccer Federation. He asks to “borrow” Fergus and the boys for a fourteen-city tour promoting the colt and the sport of soccer. The boys’ parents agree and the tour launches successfully with Fergus enjoying the matches and playing flawlessly. All goes well until the colt is horse-napped partway through the tour by three bad guys who scheme to turn him into a bucking rodeo champ. The rest of the story relates Fergus’s struggles and his return to Simpson Farms.

Peterson’s book should entice young (8- to 12-year-old) boys to read. He offers adventure, sports, and humor. His bad guys provide comic relief and still have a conscience. In an era when few books cater to the young male reader, Fergus is a welcome addition. Young girls can enjoy the story of this endearing colt, too.

Fergus, The Soccer-Playing Colt
By Dan A. Peterson
Raven Publishing, Inc. (2005)
Reviewed by Kim Peterson (not related to author) for Reader Views (1/06)

Kim Peterson is a reviewer for Reader Views. http://www.readerviews.com

Prison parent/family educator, Jan Walker, is speaking with us today about her newly published book. Jan is trained in child and family studies and has spent the past 18 years as a correctional educator for adult felons in medium custody prisons. Welcome to Reader Views Jan.

Irene: Jan, your book, “An Inmate’s Daughter,” is being launched now. Your book speaks out for children who cope with a parent’s prison term. Tell us the gist of your book.

Jan: The protagonist, Jenna MacDonald and her mother and younger brother, have moved into Jenna’s grandparents home in Tacoma, WA, to be near McNeil Island Corrections Center, the prison where her father was transferred. Jenna is the new girl in a middle grade school, and wants to get into the “in group,” a multi-racial group of girls.

The girls are curious about her heritage (she’s part Native American Indian) and the reason she lives with her grandparents. They follow her home from school and peek in her bedroom window. She dubs them The Snoops.

Jenna’s mother enforces a “Don’t Tell” rule about prison. Jenna loves her dad and would like to talk
about him and his artistic talent. Keeping a secret is difficult in the best of circumstances. It gets
harder when Jenna calls attention to herself and the family when they are family are leaving a visit to
McNeil Island. A small child trips and falls into Puget Sound, and Jenna jumps in to rescue her. It’s an
automatic reaction, borne of many rescues of her younger brother at a trailer park swimming pool
where they used to live.

Irene: What inspired you to write it?

Jan: During the 18 years I taught incarcerated parents, wrote curriculum and text books, and worked
with women and men to remain involved in positive ways with their children, I invested energy above
and beyond my contract-responsibilities out of concern for my students’ children. They are innocent
victims of their parents choices. The children broke no laws, yet they are often abused or shunned in
their communities, schools, and sometimes in their own extended families.

After leaving correctional education to write full time, a friend and writing mentor encouraged to write
a book for children from about age 9 or 10 to about age 15. She said it should be classified as a
middle grade novel. Children who fall in the age group 9 to 15 are often the most hurt and confused
about incarceration. I didn’t know how to write for that age, so I had to learn some parameters as I
went along. My friend listened t o the entire first draft, offered good suggestions, and encouraged me
to get it published. She died before I found a publisher. The book is dedicated to her, but it is in fact
my effort to let children of incarcerated parents know that I understand a bit of their struggle, and that
I value them enough to spend considerable time and energy writing a story about one of them that is
for all of them.

Irene: You have been teaching parenting and family relationship classes to adult felons for 18 years.
Tell us how and why to chose this career.

Jan: The career chose me. I was teaching similar courses on a community college campus in
Tacoma, WA, when the state legislature mandated prison education would fall under the community
college system. I agreed to set up programs and teach at the women’s prison for one year. The
population and their need for courses tailored to them hooked me.

Irene: What types of programs did you set up?

Jan: It was a Home and Family Life Program that had been high school level. I taught standard
clothing construction classes in a sewing lab and some food and nutrition courses, but my real
energies went into Positive Parenting, Child Development, and Family Relationships classes. The
prison had a cooperative preschool called Pooh’s Corner inside the education building. Children and
parents came in from the community. A preschool teacher came from a voc-tech school and ran the
preschool program. Inmate students who were in parenting or child development classes and who
were cleared to be around the children, worked as the teacher’s assistant. They interacted with the
children and kept anecdotal information that we discussed in class. That program was in place when I
started teaching there. I started writing new curriculum that fit incarcerated parents needs and
profiles, and “retired” the high school text books. My first published book was named MY
RELATIONSHIPS, MY SELF. It’s out of print. I worked on and taught the PARENTING FROM A
DISTANCE concept prior to that book’s publication. All the courses I taught fell under Home and
Family, and focused on preparing women to return home.

When I transferred from the women’s prison to McNeil Island, a medium custody male facility, it
was to coordinate an orientation program called “Project Social Responsibility.” Every man who came
to the island had to spend his first full week in that program. We had 29 facilitators who assisted with
the presentations, but I did 8 hours of the 20 hour week with them men and wrote specific parenting
and family materials for that. The project is discussed in my memoir.

Irene: Who were the main participants in your programs?

Jan: Most of the women were moms. Many of them were in touch with their children and had
regular visits. Some of them were unable to see their children due to abuse, usually by a man the
mother was involved with, though sometimes the woman was the perpetrator. Most took classes
because they wanted to be positively involved with their children. Some attended because they were
court-ordered to do so. Some faced termination of parental rights. I was often subpoenaed to those
cases. A few lost their children but won the right to receive information or photos through the years.
A few (maybe three where I went to court) lost all rights and contact.

When I transferred to McNeil Island, I had similar situations - dad’s who wanted to learn, dad’s who
were court ordered to get parenting classes, and dad’s who came to what I called “Open Door,” a lab
sort of setting where they could create items to send to their children. I named my memoir
DANCING TO THE CONCERTINA’S TUNE, and said I danced as fast as I could. I held discussion
groups during lab time so even men who were educationally low level achievers learned by listening. I
wrote letters to courts and the office of support enforcement (I made and kept templates on my
computer to speed things up) for men who couldn’t read or write, and had never signed a business
letter. I learned to point to where their signature should go, and to praise them when they managed a
“signature” that was really joined printing they were learning in an adult basic education classroom.

In addition, at both prisons, I gave parenting and family handouts I created and assorted craft items to
any who asked for them, though the office staff sometimes had to help me run copies because I
overused my copying budget.

Irene: You have written “Parenting From a Distance” a number of years ago. How different are the
two books from each other?

Jan: I wrote Parenting From A Distance for a class I was teaching at the women’s prison. It is a text
book geared to the needs of incarcerated parents. I revised and reissued that book in December 2005.
It’s a text book focused on the rights and responsibilities of parents who are separated from their
children. An Inmate’s Daughter is fiction written from the view point of the child. The incarcerated
dad in An Inmate’s Daughter is a man who has taken parenting classes while inside, and who
understands the difficulties children of incarcerated parents face.

Irene: Have any of the inmates that you teach read any of your books? If they did, what were their
reactions?

Jan: MY RELATIONSHIPS, MY SELF was a text for a family class at the women’s prison so all
who enrolled read it and completed the worksheets. Far more read PARENTING FROM A
DISTANCE. Many many students read snippets of other things I wrote since I created scenarios for
“Writing to Clarify Thinking” assignments. I used writing in every class I taught, and even taught
Creative Writing classes as McNeil.

Let me say this about the parenting book especially: My students, men more so than women, were
surprised, amazed, awed that someone cared enough about inmates to write such a book for their use.
The reason I went out on a limb, financially, to reissue the parenting book is because I know it makes
a difference. There are no formal measures to demonstrate that. It’s just something I know. I hope
AN INMATE’S DAUGHTER, helps some of the general population stop for a moment to think about
men and women inside prison and their reality.

Irene: Keeping family secrets has been a script that has been passed down for generations. You are
encouraging to break this script. Tell us the benefits of “talking” about family issues.

Jan: It’s simply this: When children are not told the truth, they make up stories that they believe are
the truth and substitute them. Secrets are destructive to all. When incarcerated parents keep the truth
of prison from their children, they close all doors to communication. When children are forced to
keep a secret, it festers inside. I use that analogy in An Inmate’s Daughter with Zeke, Jenna’s younger
brother, picking up on a comment from Grandpa who says, “Peel off the scab, let out the pus,” and
Zeke answers, “Pussss. Oooooze,” in typical 9 year old fashion.

Irene: Quite often children of felons are ostracized by society, especially their peers. How do you
encourage children to cope?

Jan: They need to remember their parents’ choices are not their fault, their parents still love them
(this is questioned in cases of child abuse; therefore, individual situations must be considered), and
they can make healthier choices themselves. They need permission to love the adults who are caring
form them, to talk about their worries and concerns, to go on with their lives while their parents are
away, and to find strength to ignore meanness in others. They need teachers in their schools who help
all the students understand some of the realities of incarceration.

Irene: What are your method’s of facing these difficulties?

Jan: When I talk with children, I make eye contact and ask them how they feel about their parents
being in prison. I help them state and restate their feelings. I talk about feelings at the very basic “Five
Feelings” level - mad, sad, glad, lonely and afraid. I like to use “You” statements. “You look sad.” “I
think you’re mad at your mom for doing something that took her away from you.” There are signs
you can read in children … nail biting, leg jiggling, looking down or away, shrugging, pulling hoods of
sweatshirts down over their eyes. Good teachers know how to read the signs and talk with the
children one to one. However, we have overloaded our teachers with requirements that leave them
little time for such interaction. How can one teacher be everything for 30 or 35 students? There’s a
reason such a large percentage of children with a parent in prison will end up doing time, too.

Irene: You spend much time teaching adults in prisons on effective parenting. How receptive are
your students?

Jan: Of the hundreds I met, two or three who were angry (possibly emotionally disturbed) wanted to
discount my teaching. The rest were appreciative, very receptive, and worked hard to regain or
maintain contact with their children. I wrote about some of the special work I did and the successes
and struggles in my memoir, Dancing to the Concertina’s Tune. (Concertina is the razor wire that
tops prison fences.)

Irene: It’s very difficult to change. Many of your students learned from their parents on how to
parent. When they go back into their own family surroundings, how hard is it for them to adjust to
the new parenting styles?

Jan: It’s never easy to change. It’s never easy to return to a family that has learned to go on without
you. In Parenting From A Distance, I wrote a good bit about “Contracts for Forgiveness” and urged
students to use them with their parents, spouses and children. That concept should be adapted by all
of us when we are in relationship struggles.

Irene: What are some of those “contracts”?

Jan: We made them simple and practiced before students left prison. It could be reading a book to a
child every night for a specified length of time, trips to a park, playing catch, helping with homework,
going out for an ice cream cone. It could be more complicated with older children … delving into
personal and family history, telling the truth about past behavior (only appropriate for the child’s age),
assisting with coaching a team or just attending sports, saving enough money for extracurricular
activities.

One woman had to contract with her mom, where she would live for a time, to clean all the paneled
walls with Liquid Gold once a week (a little obsessive?), limit her use of hot water in the shower to
her mother’s specified time, and other similar behaviors. At the end of a set contracted time, the
woman was to be forgiven and the mother wasn’t to bring up past mistakes again. We practiced how
to communicate, how to use reminders.

Irene: What percentage are successful in the changes?

Jan: Recidivism rates remain high all for all felons. There are no statistics that relate to specific
classes or educational programs, though generally the higher the education level, the less likely
recidivism. Students who worked on personal and social responsibility, and who learned both life and
job skills while inside are generally known to have higher chances of staying out of prison. Age is also
a factor. Maturity helps.

Irene: Thank you Jan. Is there anything else you would like to add about your or your book?

Jan: Please see my website, www.janwalker-writer.com I have posted some downloadable
curriculum in Parenting, Family History and Patterns, and Child Development on the site. It is set up
for instructors to use with students, with easy to read information and work sheets.

For more information on my unusual teaching, read my book, DANCING TO THE CONCERTINA’S
TUNE: A PRISON TEACHER’S MEMOIR. Ordering information is on my website.

When I look back now at how I worked with incarcerated students to try to get them prepared to
reenter their families and communities, I feel tired. It was hard work. Students who succeeded were
the ones willing to work just as hard. They would have an easier time coming out of prison if they
didn’t have to encounter societal and cultural roadblocks at every turn. That’s their reality: they need
to do their part to earn their way back into their families and communities.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor for Reader Views
http://www.readerviews.com

eBook defined

Despite being around now for over twenty years, no-one has yet come up with a stable definition for the word ‘eBook’. However, one can discern some typical features:

• The item is distributed as a single file (so CD encyclopaedias are not considered to be eBooks) and can be opened as a data file in an application, rather than being launched as an executable (.exe) file
• The item is both complete & completed - i.e. neither a chapter / episode / serial nor an unfinished work in progress
• The item is familiar to readers, as obeying most or all of the standard conventions of a book (e.g. contains a table of contents, preface, index, etc. and is between 25,000 and 400,000 words in length)

The advantages of an eBook

Aside from the financial advantages for the author (which I will cover below) there are a number of intrinsic benefits to eBooks when compared to the traditional printed book:

• Readers can search the text to quickly find key information, particularly when reading for a second time
• Readers can adjust the font face and size to make the book easier to read (ever more vital for an ageing population!)
• Blind or partially-sighted readers can make further use of text-to-speech conversion software (”screen readers”)
• eBooks can be read in low light or total darkness by using the back-lighting features of PC or mobile devices
• Distribution costs are extremely low and eBook authors and publishers can respond quickly to any erratum or addendum, with more frequent, incremental editions
• eBooks are environmentally friendly. Many hundreds can be stored on a single device and paper use (through printing) is minimised or avoided altogether
• eBooks without DRM protection can be instantly copied and backed up easily

The Advantages for the Author

When writing a traditional printed book, the odds are stacked against the author making a decent living from their work! eBooks, by contrast, deliver a real return on investment for the author:

• You cannot get rejected! A traditional book may get rejected 50 or 60 times by different publishers and agents before finally being accepted - or indeed may never find a home! Many authors paper their walls with rejection letters. You won’t have to!
• You don’t have to wait! For the traditional book, it can take up to two years for the publisher to get your book to market (managing as she does a huge and inefficient supply chain of printers, shippers, wholesalers, distributors, marketers and booksellers). An eBook may take no more than 10 weeks!
• You can make a lot more money! To illustrate this, imagine a traditionally published book with a list price of £20. The Distributor and buying public share a 50% trade discount between them (£10 in this case) and the Publisher takes £9; leaving the author with a 10% royalty on the discounted “net” price (£1). For a trade paperback, this might be less (perhaps 70 pence). For an equivalent £20 eBook, you could earn 14 times as much on each copy (£14)! More on this later in the guide.
• You get your money sooner and with less surprises! On a traditional book, an author would generally get their cut up to 120 days after the actual sale, with 20% of their cash witheld as insurance against unsold books. With eBooks it varies from immediate receipt to 90 days, with no portion witheld.
• The practical advantages; eBooks can be changed or updated easily, without the need for new print runs and thrown-away old editions. They need never go out of print and can cross genres or use unusual formulas without aggravating an interfering editor! Finally, you retain complete rights to the title and agreements will be non-exclusive (so you can sell through other publishers).

Conclusions

I hope I have convinced you that the eBook option is very much worth investigation, particularly for the new author. You can avoid publisher rejection letters, get to market 12 times faster and make 14 times the income per book than you would in the traditional publishing model.

David Viney (david@viney.com) is the author of the eBook Self-publishing Guide; Desktop to Amazon in 10 easy steps. The book is a handy pocket guide on how to get your eBook distributed via Amazon and other sites in the UK and US and marketed for maximum sales.

Read further free extracts from the guide at http://viney.com/free-ebook-self-publishing-guide/ or download the full copy of the book from there.

In chapter 2 of my free eBook Publishing Guide (”features of the eBook Market”), I explore the Book market itself and the different emerging publishing models therein.

The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta known as the Knights of St. John, or the Knights of Malta, is the oldest order of chivalry in existence, dating back to the eleventh century. The Knights of St. John came to Malta in 1530 after accepting the offer made to them by Charles V. They brought with them an international body of men from Catholic Europe with a strong tradition in government, accompanied by a sound source of income and a wealth of experience in architecture. For a large number of years Malta flourished under the rule of the Knights of St. John and it is on the Maltese islands that the Knights have left their most notable legacy reflected in the beautiful architecture of the palaces in Valletta and in Birgu, and Forts of St. Angelo, St. Elmo, Ricasoli, Manoel and Tigne; and a number of churches, most notably St. John’s Conventual Church. Two of Miranda Publishers’ books Legacy in Stone and Sovereign Palaces give a pictorial review of the heritage left by the Knights of St. John.

Malta is a veritable treasure-house of architectural interest. The Maltese have, since the beginning, always been incessant builders, but there is a special period in Malta’s history that has particularly left its mark on its architectural wealth. During their first years in Malta, the Knights of St John strengthened the existing meagre fortifications and built new ones in expectation of an attack from the Turks. A year after the Great Siege in 1565, from which the Order with the help of the Maltese emerged victorious, the first stone of Valletta was laid. The Order employed the best architects from Malta and other European countries and for more than two and a half centuries of continuous building and re-building, they succeeded in giving Valletta its unique character. In the early 17th century, the building movement moved out into the country, and here again the Knights vied with one another to build churches, country-houses and magnificent villas with exquisite laid-out gardens. The architectural legacy the Knights left in Malta remains an everlasting monument to the artistic acumen of the noblest chivalric Order of all times. This comprehensive photographic study celebrates the rich honey colour of the soft yet resilient limestone that distinguishes local architecture, and reveals the Baroque splendours of the period. It also documents the finest and best preserved fortifications in Europe.

Legacy in Stone is hard-bound with leather spine, and presented in a handmade sturdy slipcase. The text is in English with Italian and Maltese translations.

Miranda Publishers is at the forefront in the publication of large format Maltese books about Malta’s cultural and historical heritage. For more details or to purchase any of our books visit http://www.mirandabooks.com

Author: Patricia Schultz

ISBN: 0761104844

Have you ever wondered what travel means to you? This is a question I have often posed to the many travel writers I have interviewed over the past few years and for most the reply was that travel takes you out of your ordinary routine, where “ordinary” people from all walks of life can engage with each other. In reality, it is an activity that is highly motivated by curiosity about the world and its people. As Patricia Schultz, author of the New York Times bestseller, 1000 Places To See Before You Die, states in her introduction, “the urge to travel-to open our minds and move beyond the familiar-is as old as man himself.”

Schultz has written an ambitious compilation of one thousand places that she describes as her own personal short list of dream trips. She narrows the world into a tour of eight regions: Europe, Africa, The Middle East, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and The Pacific Islands, The United States and Canada, Latin America, The Caribbean, Bahamas, and Bermuda. These geographical divisions are further subdivided by country and within each country they are organized alphabetically by region or town. For example, if we refer to the USA & Canada, the reader is presented with a miniature map that is followed by short descriptions of “must see” venues within each state commencing with Alaska’s Mount McKinley and Denali National Park and ending with Quebec, Canada. In addition, there is a succinct wealth of information pertaining to each choice containing practical advice that will help you plan your trip such as hotels, sites, activities, events, outfitters or operators offering tours, treks, safaris, etc, lodging, costs, trips and/or excursions, restaurants, when to go, travel safety, and required travel documents.

Schultz’s writing style is crisp and clear as she reports with great depth on sites and venues that would suit all interests- from historic locations, to cultural attractions, and some that would enthrall you with their natural splendor as the Grand Canyon. Interspersed are numerous small black- and -white photos (typically one to a page) depicting places and people that exemplify the uniqueness of a particular venue. As a result, the reader can develop a sense of the areas being discussed and perhaps pinpoint which venues would be of particular interest to visit and further investigate. An added bonus are special indexes at the end of the book where readers will find entries for active travel and adventure, ancient worlds, culinary experiences, festivals and special events, glories of nature, gorgeous beaches and getaway islands, great hotels and resorts, living history such as castles and palaces, unrivaled museums, roads, routes and byways and sacred places.

Rich with research and personal insights, 1000 Places To See Before You Die is a fascinating voyage around the world that will appeal to every traveler, vicarious or otherwise, and deserves to be a fixture on home bookshelves as a valuable travel resource.

Norm Goldman is editor of the book reviewing and author interviewing site http://www.bookpleasures.com and the travel site http://www.sketchandtravel.com

Bookpleasures is a global Internet book reviewing and author interviewing village. Reviewers come from all over the globe and review all genre. There are over 6500 sites that link to Bookpleasures and many of the reviews are listed within the first 3 pages of the Google Search Engine.

Norm also offers his own personalized express review service where you can have a quick review within 15 business days from the receipt of your book. To learn more about this service go to bookpleasures.com

Norm is ranked among the top 1000 Amazon reviewers and he contributes his reviews to several other Internet sites.

In addition, Norm and his artist wife Lily meld words with art focusing on romantic and wedding destinations, inns, and other hospitality properties. You can read Norm’s travel articles and view Lily’s art work that is always for sale at sketchandtravel.com

Classroom Management: The Dance of the Dolphin
By Mark Kennedy
Psychology Press/Holistic Education Press (2004)
Reviewed by Christine Watson for Reader Views (1/06)

Mark Kennedy’s book, Classroom Management, the Dance of the Dolphin, does a great job of using what is already working in the classroom, and adding to it. He compares traditional
teaching to more unconventional methods, and breaks both groups into four areas. Both traditional and unconventional teaching methods are validated as he explains how both are
necessary to provide a holistic learning experience for the students.

Recognizing that the teacher will be stronger in one of the specific areas, Kennedy helps classroom leaders to take note of that fact, and broaden learning experiences for the students.
Each student has a dominant learning style, and it is important to structure the classroom in a way that every student is able to spend some time learning through his or her preferred style.
The classroom management tool that Kennedy uses and recommends is called a Micro, or democratically run classroom. He believes in structuring the classroom similar to a business or government, with students having specific roles and duties to help them self manage and learn responsibility.

This book was both enjoyable and helpful to me as a high school special education teacher.

Kennedy’s definition of “spirituality” summed up what I had been trying to formulate in my own mind for years. I would like to implement his Micro classroom management ideas into my own
classroom. His wisdom and experience shine through in every chapter. The charts he has throughout the book are terrific references to the information he is providing. Teachers,
administrators, parents, and others involved in education can all benefit from reading this book.

Christine McAlpine Watson is a reviewer for Reader Views
http://www.readerviews.com

It’s amazing how long it took me to start my first ebook I
didn’t think of myself as an author.

I knew that information was creating a fortune for others,
but who was I to think I could write a book?

I knew all the reasons to do it. The task just seemed so
daunting.

I started out writing and submitting articles. It didn’t
seem as hard, although sometimes the words came slow.

The old story of use it or lose it is so true. Once I
started getting some positive feedback, I could feel a
shift in my thinking.

The more I wrote the easier it got. As my articles began to
circulate the feedback began to increase.

Maybe I am a writer!

Web sites and newsletters starting picking up my articles
and some ezines were publishing everything I submitted.

I started writing more articles, and they started becoming
easier to write. It was an ever increasing cycle.

The ideas started coming faster. It got to the point I
always had more ideas in my mind than I had time to write.

Before I knew it I had over 60 articles and my output was
getting faster.

I began to realize that with a little editing to make the
articles flow together, I could begin writing books.

I now had my own built in database. Now the ideas for
articles are becoming ideas for books. I have tons of
articles to expand into chapters and I can link them
together into a quality book.

So the next time you sit down to write an article, realize
you’re really writing a mini book.

Once you start getting in the habit of writing articles,
realize you are writing a book, one article at a time.

If this dummy can do it, I know you can!!

About the Author

John publishes the “Street Smart Marketing”.
Subscribe now and receive a bonus copy of
John’s new ebook, “Street Smart Secrets Of
Success.” mailto:streetsmart@makenetmoney.com

I do not recommend that you create your own ebooks until you have successfully mastered selling affiliate and resale rights products.

The reasons I say this are:

* If you can’t sell affiliate or resale rights products you won’t be able sell your own products any more successfully.

* Creating your own ebooks will either take up a lot of your time or cost you money to get someone to write it for you.

* To create an ebook to professional standards you will need to learn a whole new set of skills, unless you want to spend more money and outsource this work.

I am not saying that you should not create your own ebooks, just the opposite, but you must get your timing right before embarking on a project like this. Would you want to get bogged down for a few months to produce an ebook before you even knew how to market it? If you never made many sales, you would never know why it flopped!

Did you fail because of:

* No demand for the product

* Poor quality of the product

* Product priced incorrectly

* Sales page was badly written

Many beginners give up at this stage, because they have fallen into this trap. You can eliminate all these unknowns by carefully selecting an appropriate affiliate product to promote, before going on to create your own products.

Ok, so the timing’s right, you have successfully marketed at least one affiliate program and now you’re ready to take the next step and create your own products.

Benefits Of Selling Your Own Products

* You get to keep 100% of the profits for all the products you sell

* Your product is unique and you have total control on how you market it

* Can start your own affiliate program and get others to sell your products

How Do I Go About Creating Content For My Own Ebook

Before you can even begin the creation process, you need to do your market research to confirm that there is a viable market for your product. I can’t teach you all about market research in this article, but here are some guidelines to help you on your way:

* Find out what’s already popular in your niche

* Go to Clickbank and see what’s selling and for how much

* Visit Amazon and see what their best sellers or movers are

* Don’t try and do something totally different, it’s far too risky

* What can you do with your product that will make it better than your competitors products

The first thing you need to do is get some help in the form of step by step instructions and coaching videos designed specifically for newbies.

Have you ever tried searching for good e books to download and
read on your PC? Anyone wanting to explore the e book world is
in for a shock. Its an absolute nightmare. There are so many
formats and layouts that will confuse all but the most
experienced e book user and quite honestly - can we really be
bothered with it all?

I spent a good two hours searching through the net on various
sites. What did I find? Mostly commercial sites promising free e
books only to find they want you to register and then you find
out what the catch is. I downloaded several books and there is
no uniform means by which the e book industry operates. Formats
vary from PDF ( I do particularly dislike PDF with its clunky
slow downloads ) to Microsoft Reader and numerous executable
programs, all of which require separate software to open and
read them.

Why oh why doesn’t everyone use one of the programs that will
work on any computer and just open. Like a book does. It’s not
too much to ask is it? Life is frustrating enough without having
to make things complicated. My own experience of e books has led
me to the conclusion that until the industry gets its act
together and agrees on one format they can keep it.

Many authors were enthusiastic about the potential of the e book
revolution but if you read what has happened the mainstream
writers have now turned against online publishing and e books
for reasons of distribution, copyright and format issues.

If your really bored sometime just take a look around the net
for some good quality free e books to download. I have to admit
that there are a few gems out there but in the main its normally
crap. The type of thing you get is listings and directories of
online e book stores - all claiming to be the biggest and best -
all offering nothing! When they do offer you anything its almost
always associated with ebay, marketing tips, how to run your
business blah blah blah - basically crap.

Well rant I may due to having lost 2 hours of my time which I
can never replace, but deperately low sales of e books and the
lack of any half decent material have almost without doubt
ensured the continued existence of book retailers who were
supposed to be worried about e books and their potential to
change the way we read. Oh well, another good idea down the
toilet!

One of the most powerful viral marketing tools are free e-books, they can literally provide you with an entire network of people who promote your business, absolutely free. What should you be doing with your e-book to ensure this, here are a few pointers.

The most basic tip is provide real content. If you just fill your book with a sales pitch all they have to do is click the mouse and your book is history. Provide your reader with valuable information. This both captures interest and builds credibility. If a reader likes what they see it will make them more inclined to look at your other products.

Creating your e-book doesn’t have to be a long Drawn out process burning the midnight oil whilst furiously tapping away at your keyboard. You could put together a few related articles and simply add a few comments or an introduction. If you get a lot of questions about a particular topic, then choose some and put together an e-book that offers the answers to these questions.

The two most common formats to use for e-books are ‘EXE’ format or ‘PDF’ format. Like most things there are good and bad in both. No matter what format you choose, create a layout that’s clean, attractive, and easy to navigate. You can put in links to the main sections of your book and for web sites where the reader can find more information. N.B don’t overdo the graphics; the more you use, the larger the file size. It then takes longer for your e-book to download, remember one mouse click and it’s gone.

Your own e-book is a great opportunity to provide links to your site and products. You might consider putting your website URL and logo on the cover page. You can embed affiliate links where appropriate within the context of your articles. A good idea is to include a dedicated sales page at the end of your e-book to promote a related product.

Actively encourage people to pass your e-book on, make it clear that your reader is welcome to distribute the e-book, so long as nothing is changed. Suggest that they can put it on their own website as a gift for visitors, or perhaps they could offer it as a bonus for newsletter subscriptions. The more places you get your book promoted, the more exposure you get.

To get the initial exposure you must promote and keep promoting your e-book. You can do this by promoting it in a signature file on your e-mail, getting listed on e-book directories, distributing to announcement lists or creating a special web page just for the e-book and then submit that page to search engines. This is not a complete list of how to promote, use your imagination!

Testimonials are great for promotion, if people like your e-book you may get unsolicited testimonials. Ask for permission to use the testimonial within your marketing materials.

Finally, if you offer your free e-book in exchange for e-mail addresses use an auto responder to follow up once you have given the reader the e-book. Keep their interest whilst it’s at its peak and provide more free information encouraging them to look at what else you have to offer.

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Create fantastic e-books and audio e-books without any knowledge of HTML etc. The “Dead Easy E-Book” creator visit http://www.pandas-with-typewriters.com for more info plus other great software.
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Note: You may use this article in your e-zine or on your site as long as the article and resource box remain unchanged

Copyright Mike Morris 2005