Review – Is your book project ‘Pozible’ with Crowd Funding?

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No that isn’t a spelling error but the name of a website which specialises in funding creative projects via multiple small investors to reach large targets.  In other words fund the budget of your publishing project without needing to invest any of your own money.

Sound too good to be true – well there is a catch you need to reach your budget by a certain timeline so yes it’s a race against the clock but if you set a realistic budget and enough people pledge to give the total amount before the time you have set expires then you receive every cent pledged.

It’s as simple as registering your project (with description), giving people an incentive at different financial levels of contribution (eg. a free ebook, a free ebook and a free book, a free ebook and a free book signed by the author, a free ebook and a free book signed by the author plus your sponsorship acknowledged in the book itself etc.), setting a timeline and then promoting your project just as you would your book.

It’s not just for books obviously but basically it’s pre-selling your book without needing to actually sell any copies and bringing your book to life without actually having to pay for the publishing process yourself.

http://www.pozible.com/index.php

Referral Key – the best way to get instant referrals online

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So you want more business? Who doesn’t (particularly when you book is your business and more sales brings you closer towards being a bestseller). Did you know referrals are one of the best ways to get more business? How many people do you talk to your book about on a daily basis? None, 1, 10 maybe? How many more people could hear about your book if other people were doing the talking for you?

So you have heard of social media right – on Facebook you have ’friends’, on LinkedIn you have ‘business colleges’, on Twitter you have ‘followers’ etc. but enter Referral Key, the newest social media network out there and instead of allowing you to have ‘friends’, ‘business colleges’ or ‘followers’ this site allows you to ‘refer business’ and nothing else. Social media already brings us business we wouldn’t have otherwise had but I like this site as it cuts out the small talk and goes straight to business.

Better yet it is just so easy to use. All you need to do is sign up and it’s quick and easy to build your profile. All I did was pick my domain name, upload my photo, update my contact information, list my ideal client and copy the about us section from my website. Invite people you want to refer business too (you don’t need too big a network just the people you trust eg. fellow authors etc.) which can be automated straight from your existing Facebook, Linked In or Twitter contacts by clicking on the add colleges button below your photo.

If you truly want instant online referrals without needing to join a referral based networking group Referral Key is brilliant.

https://www.referralkey.com

USB Flash Disks– no good for transferring files

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We’ll this is a bit of an unusual review as usually I review a product I like and endorse but today I am actually going to review a product I don’t like and don’t endorse. Let me clarify what I mean by that as obviously all products were created for a reason and have their place so I am not insulting the core of the product itself I just want to write a review based on the current misuse of it.

Imagine this... you work hard on designing your book yourself and then you realise you have out so many high quality images in it (as are required for print) that it won’t fit on a disc to send to your publisher. “No worries”, you think as you copy the files to your trusty USB flash drive and stick it in an express post envelope, “I have a way around that”.

Well they may have more space that a CD but I would strongly recommend burning a DVD instead of putting your files on a temporary storage device. “I am sorry”, your publisher says, “the files seem to have corrupted in transit can you please resend them”. So you do exactly the same thing again and you get the exact same response, “I am sorry the files seem to have corrupted in transit can you please resend them”.

Why would you do the exact same thing again if it didn’t work the first time. Did you know that a USB flash drive no matter how well packaged can get very hot while in transit. You don’t know where it’s been left or for how long or what the temperature it reached. What I do know is a temporary storage device such as flash disk can get corrupted cells when it gets too hot and data in plain English simply gets destroyed.

A DVD may cost a lot more than a CD but you know you will only be burning the disc once as being a permanent storage device the only way that data can be changed is if the disc is physically damaged which is obviously much less likely to happen.

Mail Plus – the only way to collect and send mail

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So you have decided to sell your book online. You want to put an address on your website 1) so people can contact you via snail mail and 2) so people can see you are a ligitament website and not an online scam. For security purposes you decide not to use your home address so you set up a PO Box but now you have to go to the post office every day to collect your mail instead of it being delivered to you. Sound farmiliar?

The good news is it doesn’t need to be this way. Introducing ‘Mail Plus’ an amazing service that takes your mail to and from your door for as little as a few dollars a day (probably cheaper than your petrol to the post office and a huge saver on your time). They check your PO Box every day and there only deliver it to you on the days that you get mail. If you get one of those little slips to say you have received a parcel too big to fit in your PO Box they que in line and collect it for you so you don’t need to and once again deliver it to your door.

Better yet you may have noticed I previously mentioned to and from. What happens when your webstore begins making so many sales you don’t have the time (or don’t want to) go down to the post office to fulfil those orders. Well with Mail Plus you don’t need to. Simply open an Australia post account (with a less than $500 spend per month there is no bond required) and then they collect your mail from you and post it for you. If you need more packaging just let them know and they purchase it on your behalf and deliver it back to you. If you don’t want to muck around with stamps you can add a postage paid stamp to your account and stamp everything before it goes out.

If you truly want to distribute your books online to make a truly passive income Mail Plus is a must.

http://www.mailplus.com.au

Adobe InDesign - Find out why InDesign is the publishing industry standard design software

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So you want to design your book yourself? Well I say good on you. But what happens when you go to send your book to print and find out your printer won't accept what you have done or wants to charge you in order to fix it. How were you to know you designed the book in the wrong software?

We'll simply put you weren't but what if you knew more about the right software so you didn't need the stress of having to repair damage you accidently caused as you didn't know what you didn't know or the additional financial burden or paying someone else to do it. Imagine if you could get your own book ready for print at the click of a button.

Well that is why I recommend Adobe Indesign. Apart from being the industry standard you can simply and easily get a book print ready in a click of a button. Better yet if you click that button and discover something isn't print ready (eg. your images are in the wrong colour mode or aren't high enough quality) you are notified immediatly and can make the necesarry adjusments yourself instead of waiting for your printer to tell you (or worse not tell you and your books arrive back from print with pixelated images.

The problem with using home based software like Microsoft Word or Publisher is they are designed for home or small business use and as such are not designed to print on professional machines. Your image quality is destroyed the moment you place an image into either of these pieces of software which is almost guarenteeing you are going to have print issues from using word. Once again Indesign comes to the rescue with all images stored external to your document as links allowing you to quickly and easily change your image mode, save and relink you image without making any changes at all to your main document.

Better yet when it comes to designing your books contents you can once again change the order of your chapters or which side of the page a chapter starts on at the click of a button. And if you want your book in an animated ebook format once again it is a click of a button to get those animated pages.

I swear by them but don't take my word for it, try them out for yourself - publishing a book has never been so easy!

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/tdrc/index.cfm?product=indesign

Eway - Find out why eway is the best online merchant around

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If you have ever looked at the costs of setting up a merchant, or worse closing down a merchant with the average bank you will realise how expensive this can be. Enter eway an Australian product which not only significantly reduces the costs but takes the stress away from the whole process.

Imagine never having to pay expensive set up or shut down merchant fee again. Imagine not having to pay expensive ongoing merhcant fees ever again? Now don't get me wrong it is not completly free but at approx 50c per transactions whose complaining.

Now here's the best part - eway is an online merchant - they are not a bank! This means a few things:

1. You can use them as multiple merchant facilities in one eg. online sales, direct debiting bank accounts, reocurringly billing credit cards, manual transactions etc.

2. They connect directly to your bank to transfer money into your bank account (meaning you can change banks at any time and just stop the connection to your current bank when you leave and start the connection with the new once you are set up with no connnection or disconnection fee)

3. There customer service is fantastic (they can have you set up in 5 days and liase with your bank for you if you are having any difficulties to speed things up)

There will ofcourse always be some fees from your bank in order to set up, run and close down even this semi-merchant facility but as an eway customer there is generally no set up or wrap up costs (please confirm this with your bank of choice) and approximately half the ongoing merchant fees to clear the credit card funds in your account.

I swear by them but by all means try them out for yourself - you will be pleseantly surprised.

http://www.eway.com.au