Our panel of successful young entrepreneurs lets you peek into their virtual toolbox of websites for saving on startup expenses. From tracking spending habits to outsourcing tasks at affordable prices, these strategies will have you soon sealing up any holes in your business suit and discovering money in savings opportunities that even you never knew existed.

1. Find Savings with Indinero

“The first step to saving money for your startup is truly understanding where your costs come from. Indinero is an online software that helps business owners see all their financials in one place. With their fantastic graphical and trend visualizations, you can identify ways to save.”

-Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

2. Tap into Talent Pools on Elance

“Elance has been great in locating people to do various freelance activities for my business. There is such a large talent pool out there, and you are able to find great people for fair prices, thus allowing you to help your margins. There’s nothing like having people bid to win the ability to help your business.”

-Justin Beegel, Infographic World, Inc.

3. Score a Deal on AppSumo

“AppSumo is awesome because it’s a daily deal site for startups. A lot of them are discounted ‘how-to’ type information that are good for new hires or interns. I also like some of the design deals that feature images because those can get expensive if you buy them from stock image sites.”

-Caitlin McCabe, Real Bullets Branding

4. Recruit for Basics through Odesk

“As an entrepreneur there’s always more that you want to do, but only so many hours in a day. Odesk enables you to find reasonably priced labor to help you with a lot of basic tasks such as online research, spreadsheet edits and database updates. We’ve found someone that we use regularly and almost consider them part of the team!”

-Chris Lee, Meeteor

5. Track Spending with Mint

“One great way to organize my finances and consequently save money has been Mint.com. Half of the battle is seeing how much you are spending and then cutting back. Being able to categorize my business expenses helped me create a budget and realize where all of my money was going.”

-Vanessa Van Petten, Science of People

6. Achieve Efficiency with RescueTime

“There is an enormous opportunity cost associated with each hour of the business day. If someone asked you how many hours per day you spend on nonessential tasks, would you be able to guess? RescueTime brings the law of focus to your online browsing. When productivity is monitored and brought to a conscious level, you will be able to make the necessary changes to save time and money.”

-Evan Kirkpatrick, Wendell Charles Financial

7. Outsource Worldwide with GetFriday

“The outsourcing team at GetFriday is unbelievably talented and diverse in their skills. I have a point person who’s my main assistant and then depending on my project, it might be delegated to their design or coding or legal departments. All for $10-20/hr. What I love is that they can handle almost any project and for a fraction of what someone would charge locally.”

-Scott Dinsmore, Live Your Legend & Cumbre Capital

8. Sourcing and Supplier Discovery through ThomasNet

“ThomasNet helps us take the guess work out of finding suppliers and manufacturers, which ultimately saves time and money. We’re able to easily locate domestic companies within the supply chain and send out multiple RFPs. This aids in negotiations and cost-savings given we aren’t limited to a few local or known options.”

-Erica Nicole, YFS Magazine: Young, Fabulous & Self Employed

9. Get Things Done with Do

“Do.com is a great way to keep track of projects, tasks, milestones and billable time. Moving off of email for project management and using Do.com instead freed up my time and made my staff more productive. Recapturing wasted time allows my business to make more money and be more efficient.”

-Lucas Sommer, Audimated

10. Couponing with Extrabux

“When you are building a company, every extra dollar counts. Because of Extrabux, I earned cash on quite a few of my purchases, and I saved money with discounts.”

-John Hall, Digital Talent Agents

11. Save on PR with Help A Reporter Out

“Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is a great way to not only help your business gain credibility, but exposure as well. Free quality media exposure is always welcomed!”

-Nicolas Gremion, Free-eBooks.net

12. Keep Up through Freshbooks

“Freshbooks is a very inexpensive option for invoicing and bookkeeping. You can break down your expenses, see where your income is coming from and keep track of clients for much less than most services. The service also links to PayPal Business which charges you a much better rate than normal transaction fees.”

-Matt Wilson, Under30CEO.com

13. Do-It-Yourself IT with Google Apps

“We use Google Apps for email, document management and various other things that we would need a full-time IT staffer to maintain if we tried to set it up on our own. With Google Apps, though, I can set up a new email address with a couple of clicks—faster than I could even tell an IT staffer to do it.”

-Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

I’ve already successfully launched a company, but the feeling of uncertainty that accompanies a launch never truly goes away. You always feel like that lame kid on the bench, wondering if anyone’s going to give you a chance to play. As I embark on a new venture, I’m reminded of the things that separate champions from failures. Here’s how you can overcome discouragement and become a force to be reckoned with.

Remember what got you here in the first place.

It’s easy to get distracted by the obstacles in your path. It’s human nature to focus on the negatives in our lives; why do you think those Debbie Downers down the hall seem to have so much influence around the water cooler? If you’re readying for a launch, that means you have the opportunity to follow a dream of yours. Not everyone gets to do that – feel fortunate to have the luxury to do so, and envision that finish line in your mind. Don’t let the trivial things distract you from the big goal. The big goal is what will supply motivation in moments of doubt.

Have realistic expectations.

We all hear about overnight successes who seemingly took the world by the storm. They launched this or that, and they made a fortune. (For proof, check out the picture of Money Bags Mitch standing next to his Ferrari!) That’s just not likely to happen to most of us, especially in a first attempt. Stop with the comparisons, and focus on what could feasibly happen. Having unrealistic expectations is just setting yourself up for failure.

Keep your team in the game.

You have to model the behavior you want to see from your team. Lead by example: be happy and proud of what you’re doing. Show your team that you care about them, and acknowledge their achievements, big and small. You know what it’s like to sit on the bench. You also know how much better it was when your coach was a little more supportive and a little less Bobby Knight, right? Give them positivity and warmth to get it in return.

Remember that people are motivated by different things. Some people love challenges; others like flexible hours or the opportunity to work with like-minded people. Play to those preferences.

Get the word out.

Your launch won’t succeed if people haven’t heard of you. You have to create a plan that incorporates marketing as much as product development. List all the marketing endeavors you plan to undertake and when you plan to execute them. You can only get out of anything what you put into it. Simply building a website doesn’t mean people will come – you’ve got to take it to them. If you have little time or money for marketing, the results will follow suit. Kobe toots his own horn. Why can’t you?

Use social media and exclusivity to your advantage.

Manipulating your image early on can be a boon to your business. If you limit the number of people who can access your product or service (in other words, make it exclusive), people will clamor for information. (Look at Paris Hilton vs. Charlize Theron for a quick example of how accessibility enhances your image – or derails it.) People hate being left out (see: us, sitting on the bench). This makes it natural to ask your visitors to share information about your venture with their friends via social media – their friends are intrigued because they don’t have access. You’re simply asking them to satiate others’ curiosity, and that’s a win-win.

Take advantage of your network.

Let affiliates promote you. If they can rally up their networks, that’s an exponential score. Letting others do the marketing is huge, not only in terms of the expanded reach, but also because of the work you’re saving yourself. Use an already-launched company’s resources to make yours successful. There’s shame in hiding behind the tall kid in kickball, but there’s no shame in asking him to help you here.

A launch is exciting, but it can seem like there are obstacles everywhere you look. Keep your eye on the prize, get your team in the game, and market your butt off. You may feel like the last kid picked in kickball, or Shaq at the free-throw line right now, but that won’t last if you keep discouragement at bay. As I recall, that Shaq guy eventually became a big deal. You can, too.

That’s what the media wants you to believe.  Just writing an eBook and adding it to Amazon’s inventory won’t make you famous or rich.  These are the very rare success stories, which get a lot more copy than the other 99.9% of self-published stories: failures.

Reality check: as an unknown author, no one is going to buy your book.  People invest their hard-earned cash on those who are known quantities.  Stephen King could pull down sales by releasing a book of Post-Its he’s left around the house for himself, simply because he’s written enough well-read books that people trust him to not waste their time or money.  Debut authors sell decent amounts of their books by virtue of branding and reviews.  Their publishers do the legwork of getting them face time on talk shows, getting more celebrated authors to glowingly review their book, and getting them on the front page of websites like Amazon’s.

Do you have a marketing team ready to carry out a full-blown campaign for your eBook?  I didn’t think so.  The only way to achieve success as a self-published author is to create your own campaign.  How do you do that?

• Give your book away for free.  Right, this alone won’t make you a millionaire.  However, if you can build a fan base from your first book, you will be a known quantity as you release others.  It’s a smart way to demonstrate goodwill and build trust.
• Spread the love.  Don’t settle into thinking that Amazon is the end-all and be-all of eBooks.  There are many sites that cater to millions of readers, who may or may not be going to the “Big A” for their reading materials.  The more virtual shelves you can get your eBook on, the wider you’re casting your net.
• Get out on other forums discussing your topic.  Offering feedback and engaging yourself with the communities who are interested in your area of focus brands you as an expert.  People will seek out more of what you have to say, and this traffic will fuel your “sales” with a minimum of work on your part.
• Develop press releases, and release excerpts of your book in advance.  Marketing your book as if it’s being talked about is key to traditionally published authors’ success.  It’s also key to your success.  Getting potential readers intrigued by sharing snippets of your eBook, as well as leading readers to your site through keywords on search engines, are essential practices.  Don’t be scared of bragging – no one else is.
• Use social media.  Obviously, you should advertise your eBook on your Twitter and Facebook accounts.  But you should also include links to your social media sites within your eBook – readers can share your book, and you can connect with your readers directly.  Being accessible will go a long way to selling your product.  If you can get people like Stephen King (okay, or more realistic “influencers”) to tweet about your work, thousands of people will read those words.  Don’t underestimate the power of social networking.

If you follow these tips, you could find yourself in the company of people like Amanda Hocking and John Locke.  Hocking struggled to find a publisher for her paranormal series, and began self-publishing; she sold 450,000 copies of her books in one month.  Locke is equally impressive – he sold one million dollars’ worth of eBooks in a 5-month period and nabbed a spot on the New York Times Best Sellers List.

As a self-published author, your success falls squarely on your shoulders.  Writing the book is only the beginning of the race, not the finish line.  You’ll have to work hard to market yourself; posting your book on Amazon and walking away, middle fingers blazing, isn’t going to lead to sales.  Defy the odds by being your own best marketing director.  You’ll thank me later when you aren’t in the 99.9% of eBook writers.

Guess what?  So is everyone else.  People are constantly plugged in to social media sites, so these outlets are prime locations to sell your eBook.  Potential customers waiting in line at the supermarket can just as easily read about your eBook on Twitter as they can read about the Kardashians’ latest escapades in the magazines at the checkout.  Which is a better use of their time?  You and I both know the answer.

Because these people are tech-savvy, they comprise your perfect demographic.  People who are willing to engage electronically are the most likely to take something away from your eBook.  They’re also the most likely to spread the word about your book, and there’s a lot to be said for letting your clients do your marketing for you.  So how do you utilize social media to sell your eBook?

Find “influencers” to review or mention your book.  If John Grisham gives your book an insanely positive review on Twitter (“Best book ever, couldn’t do it better myself!”), millions of people will see his words and be more inclined to check your book out.  John Grisham’s a known entity and you’re not, so his words will mean more than yours at this point.  However, we’re back to the central point here: he’s John Grisham.  Try to nab some more realistic influencers at the beginning.  Does your work buddy have 20,000 followers on Twitter?  Does your favorite college professor have a broad network of writers connected to her on Facebook?  Do you love a book by a less famous author?  These are good places to start.

Don’t just randomly start posting your eBook on their walls or Twitter accounts; that will backfire.  Follow these people and develop a true connection before approaching the subject.  You know how you were told to show more interest in the other person in order to become their friend as a kid?  That advice follows here.  Genuinely express enthusiasm for their work and develop a rapport before bringing your book up.  Coming off like a shady salesperson will backfire, too.

Bribe your customers (ethically).  Give your book (or something similar) away for free to those who “like” you or tweet about you.  It’s a win-win-win.

1. You build a fan base for yourself by giving people your book for free.  This can help sell future books – people will remember you as generous and interesting if your book is good.
2. Your social media fan bases will grow through the viral nature of this.  If you’re sharing a free book via “likes” and tweets, you’ll soon leave your buddy with 20,000 followers in the dust.
3. Your readers get a free book.

Include links to your social media accounts directly in your book.  This seems like a no-brainer, but most people still don’t do it.  The links can be inserted anywhere – at the beginning, in a footer, at the end.  If you’re giving your book away for free, encourage readers to share it.  A short note saying, “Share this eBook for free with your family and friends by simply hitting the ‘like’ or ‘tweet’ buttons.  They’ll thank you for it!” will give people an idea they may not have on their own.  It also lets them know it’s kosher – people (rightfully) worry about copyright issues, so you’re approving of sharing it without anyone having to ask.

If you’re selling your book, you can still connect with your audience.  Add a statement saying, “Enjoy this book?  Let’s connect via Facebook or Twitter.”  A lot of people think it’s pretty cool to be able to connect with an author like that.

You and I are both utilizing social media all day, every day, so you might as well make good use of it.  eBook success is very dependent upon your willingness to be your own marketing director.  Social media will give you the biggest bang for your buck, since its viral nature will allow your marketing efforts to multiply quickly with very little effort on your part.  So go forth, young grasshopper, and someday, you may have John Grisham tweeting about you.

Check out these recommendations, compiled by www.free-eBooks.net:

1. 550 PR, Marketing & Social Media Tips by Cyndy Hoenig & Heather Lytle

If you’re using social media to grow your business, you’ll value this book.  Cyndy and Heather give you Twitter-sized bites of knowledge on how to mold your corporate profile and market your company in the most effective way possible.  Some of these tips will serve as reminders, while others may trigger some big changes.

2. How to Sell Social Media by David Bullock

There are still people out there who haven’t jumped on the social media bandwagon.  (These people clearly aren’t friends of yours, but stick with me here.)  This eBook explains why these outlets should be considered valid in the modern workplace, and it offers you solid tips on how to sell social media to clients.

3. How to Nail Social Media Without Fail by Jon Rognerud

Besides having an awesome title, Jon’s book shows you how to garner social media traffic with some weight behind it.  He’ll demonstrate how you get quality feedback on your site, as well as how to start a conversation with your community.  If you’re into case studies, there are several in these pages.

4. Twitter Wonder Tactics: Harness the Power of Twitter for Pure Profit by Grigore Turcanu

You love to blast your colleagues with 140 words’ worth of your thoughts on a daily basis (and I’m sure they love it, too).  This “social club” atmosphere actually makes it easier to socialize your way to making money.  Twitter’s user rate grows over 1000% per year; read this book to understand how you can use Twitter as a resource and not just as a forum for your thoughts on sheepherding.  (Although you can use it for that, too.)

5. Social Media Mastery by Mark Collier

For a taste of something different, check out Mark’s book, which includes exclusive interviews with three social media experts.  This volume also provides in-depth tutorials and helps you develop strategies to use Facebook and Twitter to brand yourself.

6. Social Media for Business by Warren Knight

Warren has worked with businesses like Disney and Nickelodeon to expand their social media marketing; he may know a little something about this arena.  He knows that not every strategy fits every business, and you should, too.  He’ll help you identify which methods will work best for your company, and how to implement them.

7. Mainstream Social Media by Jerry Holliday

It’s easy to think that since everyone’s on the mainstream social media sites, all of the marketing ideas have been exploited.  In reality, having so many people on these sites makes networking easier, and it allows you to present yourself in ways you never could before.  This eBook will help you put a new spin on your old social media brand.

8. Internet Marketing Strategies by Nicholas Ritchey

Nicholas’ mantra is to work smarter, not harder.  (Interesting, that’s my motto, too.  Great Nics think alike.)  This eBook is a practical guide on how to maximize your traffic while minimizing your exposure to scams.  It also gives you the straight story on the costs associated with making yourself a marketing success.

9. Social Media Marketing Secrets for Online Business by Jon Rognerud

(Yep, this is Jon’s second entry.  Just read one of his books already!)  This is a great read on how to focus your social media efforts so you can transition from having a scattershot approach to developing a cohesive brand.

10. Social Media Directions by Jay Deragon

Did you know that 96% of all online advertising fails to get attention from its audience?  Increase your chances of conversion by picking up tips on targeting your readers and meeting their needs.  Rather than using social media to deliver your message, use social media to interpret your clients’ expectations.

Reading one of these free eBooks over the holidays will give you great motivation going into the new year, and you’ll come back to your social media accounts refreshed. Even better, your friends will appreciate the new goals your gifts will help them set, both for their companies and for their personal brands.  (They’ll appreciate this just as much as they’ll appreciate the break from your Twitter battle with that sheepherder in Australia, I promise.)

So how do you become an expert and market your eBook simultaneously? Follow these steps to kill two birds with one stone:

• Get involved with forums, blogs, and other websites that focus on the topic you’ve written about. If you post guest blogs or offer feedback to others that proves you know what you’re doing, people will naturally seek more input from you. The more traffic the sites receive, the faster your reputation grows. Posting on forums is a great idea for another reason, too: The better your rapport is with the people who share your interests, the more likely they are to help you later.)
• Give your eBook away for FREE! You may be cringing right now, but as an unknown author, you’re not going to sell many books at any price (There are rare exceptions, of course, but let’s err on the side of caution). Making your first book available for free allows you to build a fan base, and it’s also a tool for establishing you as an expert for future eBooks. One writer published her eBook with my company for free, and she garnered over 44,000 downloads in a few months. Comments flooded her listing indicating they can’t wait for her next volume. She will easily be able to sell the highly anticipated second book and ring up bigger sales with it than she would have if she’d tried to sell both books right out of the gate. Many people are invested in her story now after receiving a free sample, so they’ll be return customers. (Check out her success by visiting here.)
• Develop press releases. You can write these yourself and distribute them among your network, in addition to media outlets. Load your press releases with keywords on which search engines will pick up. Add links to directly deliver your potential customers to a site where they can get a copy of your book. In our digital age, you can use press releases to have a conversation with buyers rather than journalists. Write your releases to address the people who will benefit from your work.
• Create excerpts to entice your customers.Your eBook contains strong content, and the best way to get others interested in your book is to give them a sample. Take snippets of your eBook and create articles that highlight some of the best ideas within the book and submit them to high volume article directories or related blogs and websites. You can do the same with videos. For your visual customers, videos will function like a great TV commercial.
• Utilize social media. Your existing Twitter, Facebook and Google+ accounts will allow you to get the word out about your achievement. This is the type of marketing where your enthusiasm will do the selling for you. If your work sounds interesting and it’s obvious to those in your network how much effort you put forth, they’ll be invested in your success.
• Submit your eBook to as many sites as possible. The more places your book appears, the higher your chances of it being downloaded. Getting placed on busy sites, like Amazon, iBookstore, Smashwords and Free-eBooks.net, will make your eBook incredibly accessible. Think of self-publishing like traditional publishing: Rejection can come in many forms, and being available in many places reduces your chances of being rejected by readers.
• Become known as an expert in the media. Sites like HARO (Help a Reporter Out) or PR LEADS can drum up business for you. These are great repositories of information for media outlets, and these websites match users up with “best-fit” media resources.

Remember that there’s a time and place for blatant self-promotion, as well as a need for subtlety. Avoid the aggressive tactics when utilizing social media, and don’t create articles or videos with this tone. An unnerving marketing campaign will turn off customers before they even have an opportunity to read your book. Cultivate a reputation as a helpful, knowledgeable resource with your book, as well as beyond your book.

Following these steps will increase the buy-in you receive from your potential customers, and it will get people to your book. Once you have a built-in customer base, you’ll be able to sell your books — and that, my friend, confirms you’re an expert.

Publishing an eBook is just as much about marketing yourself as it is about writing.  (And you, Donald Trump wannabe, have no problems chatting yourself up.  This will be a piece of cake!)

An eBook is an easy way to gain an audience and establish yourself as an expert; it can also be a moneymaker for the entrepreneur-in-training.  How do you make the leap from eBook author to bestseller?

Writing Your eBook

Your first focus should be the work itself.  You’ve no doubt picked a topic you know well, one which you could talk about in depth with other people.  (If you didn’t, count on being poor for a while!)  Your eBook needs to do three things for you:

1. Explain ideas clearly to your audience;

2. Add something new to the discussion; and

3. Be edited well.

Your eBook should capture people’s attention with its subject matter, but the ideas contained within its pages are meaningless if your readers cannot understand what you’re saying, or have no idea how to apply your theories in real life.  Examples, brevity, and language free of jargon will go a long way toward this. You also want to ensure that you add something new to the topic being discussed, whether that’s a new way of viewing the subject or a new use for the information.  For example, if you are a niche expert on organic fabrics and most items on the subject revolve around how to make fashionable clothing from it, you may opt to write about how sustainability and fashion interact, or how organic fabrics can be used to make upholstery.

Before you publish your eBook, ensure that your piece has been thoroughly proofed.  This means covering basics like grammar, punctuation, and spelling – your audience needs to take you seriously – but it also refers to getting feedback from secondary readers.  Ask friends, family, or colleagues you trust to read your eBook.  Select readers who will be honest and tell you that your book is loaded with run-on sentences, or that your second chapter seems a little skimpy.  You want your name to be associated with quality content.  (Don’t mention the ice chalet you plan to buy in the Alps with your earnings.)

Marketing Your eBook

Once you have self-published your eBook, you will need to get the word out.  Your work will be available online, so take advantage of this outlet.  There are many online communities out there with people who will help, or offer advice, for free.  Search for forums, blogs, and other websites that focus on your eBook’s subject – these people will be interested in helping you, and they’ll have great suggestions on ways to get the word out.  Schmoozing helps you here as much as it helps you anywhere!

Build a reputation for yourself as an expert.  You can do this in many ways, from posting on the aforementioned websites (high-traffic sites will serve you best) to working with a company that will help you establish yourself as a specialist.  Many, like Digital Talent Agents, will utilize your expertise to find footholds across many media outlets.

You can, of course, do some media marketing yourself.  (Let’s pretend you’re not doing this all day as it is, Richie Rich.)  Social media marketing and press releases are two things you can do on your own, and these are also two methods that allow you to use your current list of contacts to spread the viral word with simple links and documents.  Adding a link to your email signature is another efficient way to let your network know you’ve published a book – and you never know how many times your signature may get forwarded.

You can go a step further and create excerpts of your eBook as marketing tools.  Writing an article or creating a short video that touches on the content of your eBook is essentially giving your customers a preview of your eBook; whetting their appetite is a great way to encourage a purchase.  The best commercials convince you to go see a new movie; think of your free articles and videos the same way.

These are all very cost-efficient methods of selling your product, but this means nothing if your eBook isn’t readily available.  Try to post your book on as many sites as possible; good options include Amazon, iBookstore, Smashwords, and Us.  Remember your rights and responsibilities as an author – you own a copyright to your work, and so do others.  Some sites, like Amazon, spot-check books to ensure copyrights aren’t being violated.  Read up on Digital Rights Management to educate yourself on your rights.

Success is Possible

While these methods may seem simple, they work.  One well-known example of a successful eBook author is Amanda Hocking, a twenty-something who couldn’t find a publisher for her paranormal series for young adults.  She self-published her novels as eBooks and sold 450,000 copies of the books in one month.

John Locke is another notable example; he sold one million dollars’ worth of eBooks in a 5-month period and landed himself on the New York Times Best Sellers List.  Why can’t that be you?

As a self-publisher, putting your book together will not cost very much; however, completing the book doesn’t get you past the finish line.  As an unknown author, marketing yourself takes time and effort, but there’s a big payoff at the end.  And don’t forget – once you’re a success, you can count your money in that ice chalet while you write your next eBook.

An eBook can help you achieve all of this – if you know what you’re doing.

Why write an eBook?

eBooks are easy to write and simple to release. You don’t have to maintain an inventory or worry about shipping; the product is a one-time investment on your part.  With the introduction of the Kindle, iPad, and other tablets, e-publishing is a quickly expanding industry.  Time is at a premium for most readers, so the faster you can get information in their hands, the better.  There’s no better way to do this than with an eBook.

As convenient as an eBook is for your readers, it’s just as convenient for you as a writer – you can write an eBook from your couch.  If you’re a regular blogger, you’ll already have a lot of content to mine for book ideas.

How to Decide what to write about

Find a niche.  Your eBook needs to fill a demand, so look at what’s lacking in the marketplace.  If your expertise is in management but every website is flooded with eBooks on how to reward employees, write about how to make the transition from employee to manager.  Finding a void in the marketplace is key to establishing yourself as an expert, and it’s essential to attracting readers.

If you’re not sure whether others would be interested in the subject you’ve chosen, put feelers out on Facebook or Twitter.  Introduce the idea on your blog, and pay attention to reader comments on other topics you’ve addressed.  Often, your readers will ask a question or make a remark that nudges you toward a subject they want to know more about.  Take note of the problems people are trying to solve.

How to write your Ebook

Remember that while your tone can be casual, your eBook still needs to have structure.  Outline your points so your ideas can be presented in an organized way.  Include transitions between topics; don’t make your readers struggle to follow you.  An eBook is longer than a blog post, and you need to keep readers’ attention without confusing them.

Brevity is your friend!

Be ruthless in cutting unnecessary words and phrases.  While we’re talking about language, most eBooks exist to teach people something.  If this description fits your eBook, write in clear language – don’t confuse your audience with industry-specific terms that add nothing to the lesson being learned.  If you do need to use some industry verbiage, remember to fully explain the terms when you they’re introduced.

Your focus is on substance.

Your words need to have gravity behind them.  Your cover and images can be eye-catching (and, in fact, they should be – whether we like it or not, people do judge books by their covers), but your words need to be just as stimulating.  Research your topic and incorporate facts and examples where you can.  Many manuals and books rehash the same information with different words.  Give your audience something new to chew on – make connections between things they may not have seen before; point out patterns.

Write something revolutionary.

One caveat here: do not research a topic dry.  If you’re burying yourself in other people’s thoughts, you’re more likely to regurgitate them for your readers.  Furthermore, you should never write about something you don’t know.  The fastest way to hurt your publishing reputation is to throw bad product out into the marketplace.

Find ways to isolate information and make it pop.  Use subheadings, bullets, excerpted quotes, and other text blocks to draw the eye to important information. 

Good eBooks condense broad subjects into bite-size chunks.

Give yourself deadlines.  Deadlines will push you to write, and they’ll help you head off writer’s block.  Working on chapters can be a leap if you’re used to writing smaller pieces, so this will help you pace yourself.

What kinds of technical stuff do you need to know?

eBooks are painless to publish.  Most are released as PDFs and are fewer than 50 pages.  If you keep your eBook to 2 MB or fewer, readers will be able to email your eBook around to friends and family.  I can’t emphasize enough the power of your readers to promote on your behalf, so keep these details in mind.  If you’re looking for a more unique way to publish your eBook, go to www.foboko.com and use the Publishing Wizard there.

When referencing something, add hyperlinks for ease.  Utilize hyperlinks when you’re developing your table of contents, too – your readers will thank you.  The more user-friendly your work is, the more likely your audience will check out future eBooks you publish.

In the U.S., your eBook will automatically hold a copyright.  According to current copyright law, you’re covered for up to 70 years after your death.  That doesn’t mean that intellectual theft doesn’t occur, so add a notice with the copyright symbol (©) with the publication year and your name.  You can also add “Copyright” before this notice.

Once you’re ready to go public with your work, network through social media.  The people you’re connected to are most likely to invest in your concept, so let them spin a web outward for you.  Take advantage of the keywords in your eBook to increase your profile on search engines.

If you follow these tips, there’s no limit to what an eBook can do for you.

How do I get exposure for my eBook?

There are a number of resources that help you in getting exposure for your eBook. Make sure that the site you use to gain exposure draws the right market for your book and allows you full control of distribution. You can try out Free-ebooks.net to allow others to read your book and gain exposure and profit! You can also use book directories and even get your eBook on Amazon.com.

Joining us today is Nicolas Gremion. He is the CEO of Paradise Publishers. Nick got his start with eBooks pretty early on, and he’s here to talk with us today about eBooks and where he’s taking Paradise Publishers today. Nick, as I like to start things out with, can you give us a little bit about your background and tell us a little bit about Paradise Publishing?

Nick:
I’ve always been an entrepreneur. I’ve had a job, I think, since I’ve been nine years old. I was the kid that got out the lawn mower in the summers, going door to door, shovel in the winters. So I’ve always had the entrepreneurial spirit. I think it provides a lot of benefits if you have the responsibilities to follow through with it. Our latest venture, Paradise Publishers, I founded in 2006, and we dove into the eBook business about two years before Amazon. So we’ve been in the eBook business for about five years now. Our main site is free-eBooks.net. We provide a venue for authors to showcase their work, and we provide a venue for readers to get free reading. So it’s really a win-win situation.

Mike:
Thanks, that’s a great background. Can you tell me a little bit more about how Paradise Publishing works and then maybe a little bit of where the direction is going with the new website, Foboko.com?

Nick:
Yeah. Paradise Publishers is focused in the eBook industry. As I mentioned, our primary site right now is free-eBooks.net. We’re pioneers in the eBook industry. We’re one of the first eBook libraries out there. Authors come to us, they submit their eBooks because they’re looking for exposure. Most of our authors will receive a thousand, two thousand, five thousand eBook downloads in the first week alone. So they’re really getting a lot of exposure, and that’s what the authors want. On the readers’ side of things, readers are getting books for free. So, again, it’s a win-win.

Right now we are pursuing a few different projects. The Spanish demand for eBooks is growing tremendously, so we’re making a Spanish copy of the website that will cater to Spanish eBooks.

We’re also diving into the mobile app world. We launched an iPhone app a few months ago, and it already has about 100,000 downloads. So it’s getting a lot of play. We’re looking at building an Android app as we speak, as well as an iPad app.

Probably, best of all, our latest venture is a website called Foboko.com, and we’re developing that at the moment. Basically, what Foboko will do is it will allow anyone to easily create an eBook. The New York Times put out a survey sometime back that said about 70% of adults had the desire to be published. I mean, that’s huge. It was right up there with weight loss. People want to write books. I mean, writing books brings tremendous credentials, right? So, basically what we’re doing is creating a social publishing wizard that will allow anyone to easily create an eBook, then give that book away for free, but still allow people to profit from that through advertising revenue sharing.

So, right now, if you post your book with an Amazon or an iBooks store, chances are you’re never going to sell 100 copies of your book. As an unknown author, you might have created the best book out there, but if you’re trying to sell it for 99 cents, five bucks, ten bucks, whatever it is, people just aren’t going to download your book. That’s a major problem authors face. So we’re looking to overcome that by allowing people to give away their books, which is what we’re doing on our existing site, which creates massive downloads, while also profiting from revenue sharing that’s based on advertising. So they can get the exposure and get the revenues.

Mike:
You mentioned revenue sharing and advertising. How does that work today? What platform are you using?

Nick:
Right now. we’re using Google’s AdSense program because it provides relevant advertising. So, for example, you might have written a book about Japanese gardens. Google’s program will put relevant ads about gardening, lawn feeds, stuff like that around the book. Somebody else might write a book about business, and it might only put business related ads around there. So the ads become relevant to the subject matter of the books. That really makes a big difference because you want to target your ads to the audience.

Mike:
You previously mentioned to me that, when you got your start early on and you were focusing in on eBooks, people tried to kind of persuade you away from that, which I think is a common issue that entrepreneurs face. But tell me, how did you stick to your guns and stay with that? What kept you on task with that?

Nick:
To be honest with you, I saw it as the future. I mean, there are so many things that are convenient about eBooks. I had confidence in it. At the time, I was looking for an emerging market. If everybody was doing it at the time, I didn’t want to get into it, right? So I was really looking for an emerging market, something that I had confidence in, and eBooks was it. I was using eBooks myself. I knew a lot of people who were reading eBooks. It just seemed like the way to go.

Mike:
You say you’re focused on changing the landscape of the publishing industry. Why? What is calling for that change?

Nick:
The need to make that change, I mean, I’ve been working with authors for a long time. We work directly with authors, so we get a lot of feedback from authors. We hear it all the time. Authors put hard work into these books. A lot of people dedicate a lot of time to put in these books. Then they go to Amazon or to the iBooks store and they try to sell books. But, again, because they’re relatively unknown, it’s a dead-end for authors, right? That’s when authors come to us and submit their book to us. Then, a week later, a month later, I hear from them, “Oh my god, look at my book. It’s been downloaded 10,000 times. This is amazing. I love you guys.”

So, right now, we’re providing the exposure for the authors because they want to get that recognition. It’s like if you’ve painted a picture. If no one ever looks at, it does you no good. You want people to appreciate what you’ve done, right? So, right now, we’re allowing authors to get that exposure, to get a fan base. But authors, they still want to make money at the end of the day, and that’s the problem with independent authors trying to sell their books. That’s where the advertising revenues come in. They get to get that exposure and earn money at the same time.

Mike:
What are the hot topics or hot genres in eBooks right now?

Nick:
The usual suspects. Fiction is always hot, romance very hot, always. In non-fiction, we do about 50-50 fiction to non-fiction. Business books, especially people that are interested in eBooks are always interested in things like online marketing, that type of thing is always popular. Like I said before, the demand for Spanish eBooks is really growing. There’s a big market for that. But the romance, the fiction, those are always the biggest ones. Right now, we offer a top ten. We offer, actually, five categories of top ten eBooks. We break down the top ten into fiction, lifestyle, business. The top ten books, some of them have been downloaded 200,000 times. So there’s a lot of exposure, a lot of need for eBooks. Lots of people are liking what we do and what we offer.

Mike:
Hey Nick, thanks a lot, it was great talking to you.

Nick:
All right, thanks. Have a great day, man.