Monday, May 31, 2010

Self Publishing Notes For Beginners

Here's a few notes from the field, your early steps on the yellow brick road to self publishing on line.  It's simple, not to be confused with easy.  Please know that the journey is worth the drama.


HOW TO CREATE YOUR BOOK?:


Kathleen Gage has a great course on how to create a money making product. I recommend you take her class.  It's one of the few paid steps you will read me recommend in this process.


How you create your book is basically up to you. A basic outline I use for folks with research material is to take their papers and organize them so that they tell the story that leads to your conclusion.  Step away for a few days.  Come back and write an outline of your story, either on a computer or by hand. 



An old school set of computer training notes on how to use a computer are posted at www.computerhealth.org/htc, lessons 3-5 are on word processing & desk top publishing basics.  The program has been updated since these notes, but the basics are the same.  


The book publishing process is in essence you write and edit your book (or pay someone to to that for you), then make (print) a .pdf file (which is the file professional printers use to make books) of your interior. Your cover can either be made by you or use one of the online tools to build it.  Two files (cover and interior) equal one book. Printer specifications differ and they tell you about page and file size. Upload to an on demand printer and sell your books.  You can also sell cheaper ebook editions on various sites.


In most cases, setting up accounts or subscribing to a newsletter are free. Only a few of the services and sites listed come with minimal charge, especially considering the value for the dollar. This process can be done with no money down, then invest profits in sales and marketing. Choose based on your needs and budget.


Set up your accounts, follow instructions and you're on your way.  This list is limited to my experience and intended as a starting point. Use your search engines to find companies that best suit your needs.  I'll update later this spring to add more services, teachers and opportunities to promote your work. Search the web for more information on things like free press release services.  Also consider your own show on www.ustream.tv 


There are paid services on some of these sites, like CreateSpace, that offers professional editing, video making, etc. so if you have the funds go for it.  Otherwise, start with the free account and build from there.


Reorganize the information to fit in the story outline.


Edit, Edit, Edit. Add images if any. Proof, Proof, Proof. Make a .pdf and upload to www.createspace.com account.  Below are the details for after you've made your final .pdf, as per size specifications found at createspace.  


MONEY ACCOUNTS


Sign up for PayPal and start accepting credit card payments instantly.


www.bankofamerica.com (or your bank's web address i.e. www.chase.com ) to accept and make payments
www.createspace.com and/or www.lulu.com - on demand printers and book builders


SALES TOOLS


www.cafepress.com - promo items for sale
www.ebay.com - on line auction site for books an ebooks
www.jagetit.com - on line auction site
www.amazon.com - Under features and services consider registering for Amazon Associates, and Sell Your Stuff
www.clickbank.com a vehicle to sell electronic versions of your book (ebook) It's free to sell other people's products on commission and fee based to have other folks sell your books.
www.youtube.com free place to run book promos, hold classes.
www.moodle.com set up interactive classes 




MARKETING TOOLS


www.streetsmartsmarketing.com Kathleen Gage is a great resource person to help with marketing.  Sign up for her free newsletter and as soon as you can afford it, take some of her training.


www.facebook.com - free social networking tool
www.skype.com - free video phone
www.twitter.com - free social networking tool
www.myspace.com - free social networking tool
http://www.posterous.com/ - cross platform (different sites) posting 


Do an On line press kit. How to build an online marketing kit?
Free Press Release distribution www.free-press-release.com , www.prlog.org , www.newspapersol.com


This one is not free.  www.godaddy.com is an inexpensive way to hook up your own website.


Plan a virtual book tour - no cost promotion via on line radio and tv shows on ustream, youtube, cable, satellite, broadcast via Skype http://bookmarketingmaven.typepad.com/virtual_book_tour_magic


HOOKING IT ALL UP


www.tweetdeck.com - allows you to cross post on myspace, facebook, twitter and other social media
www.linkedin.com - professional social media network.
www.google.com (your google account gets you a Youtube channel and a blogspot blog, and many other benefits,  www.hotmail.com or www.yahoo.com - to set up secondary email (consider one personal and one for business)


That will get you going. Happy Publishing.




On demand books the railroad has helped publish that use the above links  include (soon to be promoted through Kathleen Gage's system) :


On CreateSpace / Amazon


Alternative Medicine: Hemp For Victory: The Wonder Herb  by Richard M. Davis, USA Hemp Museum


Based on the USA Hemp Museum's Medical Room, this book is a tour of information, a sampling of articles and photographs explaining how medical marijuana works from the perspective of the doctors, patients, caregivers, farmers, cooks and the Physicians Desk Reference Herbal Edition.


Every medical marijuana clubs, professional and customer should take this tour and better use the hemp tool that we have.


Black History: Black People And Their Place In World History by Dr. Leroy Vaughn, MD, MBA
I met Dr. Vaughn via my cousin Lloyd Hardin when I first came to California.  He had written a series of articles for the Los Angeles Sentinel from his floor to ceiling room of Black History books.


Black history is Dr. Vaughn's passion and his insights revolutionized my life.  From his articles I learned about Black Wall Street, who the 5 other Black presidents are, Queen Nzinga, Henry Flipper and the real wild west.  This book is a combination of Dr. Vaughn's articles and photographic supporting evidence…a wonderful journey that helps with the transformation from history to truthstory.


Economics: Hemp For Victory: The Trillion Dollar Crop by Richard M. Davis, Founder & Curator
If you're tired of the whining about how we are in economic trouble as a town, state, nation and world, then this is the book for you.


This museum tour takes you on a journey among business people, professors and lawyers who make the case in plain language for the many benefits that come from the simple change to a hemp based economy.  This trillion dollar crop is key to helping us save ourselves.


Read, meet many of the leaders in the movement to restore sanity to economics by removing the barriers to freedom, hemp prohibition.


Environment-Global Warming: Hemp For Victory: A Global Warming Solution by Richard M. Davis
The solution to global warming is simple.  Since the problem is too much excess CO2 in the atmosphere the solution is to remove the excess CO2.


Hemp is a biomass champion that removes the excess CO2 as it grows, aerates soil up to six feet deep, burns clean as biofuel and can be made into 50,000 plus products.


To learn how to use hemp to help us reverse global warming, this is a great place to start for an understanding of the hemp solution.


LULU / AMAZON


Justice: Prelude To Intimacy by Ira Einhorn


This first Earth Day team member was framed without evidence  


Ira Einhorn is still serving jail time for a murder there is no scientific evidence he committed…no blood, DNA, hair, witnesses, nothing.  He claims his attorney, who was shortly after that “elected” to the senate, told him to run because it was a frame.


Read about his years on the run and the reasons he thinks he was framed. 


LULU


Magnetic Energy: DePalma Free Energy And The N-Machine by the late MIT Professor Bruce DePalma


The late Bruce DePalma created a magnetic generator that works with a Faraday motor to generate free energy.  His death, like that of other free energy inventors, was mysterious.


With DePalma’s friend David Crockett Williams, we compiled his papers in a logical manner and as per Bruce’s instructions, making it available for future research.

Friday, May 07, 2010

Gary Webb on CIA Drug Running - Dark Alliance Interview (Part 8)




Youtube Statement "Maxine Waters (born Maxine Moore Carr; August 15, 1938) is a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1991, representing California's 35th congressional district (map). She resides in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles, which is approximately six miles west of downtown. She is the most senior of the twelve African American women currently serving in the United States Congress.

Her husband, Sidney Williams played professional football in the NFL and is a former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas.

Following a 1996 San Jose Mercury article alleging the complicity of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Los Angeles crack epidemic of the 1980s, Waters called for an investigation into the matter. In her request, Waters asked whether "U.S.-government paid or organized operatives smuggled, transported and sold it to American citizens." The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had failed to find any evidence to support the original story. The Los Angeles Times also concluded after its own extensive investigation that the allegations were not supported by evidence. The author of the original story was eventually transferred to a different beat and removed from investigative reporting. Following these post-publication investigations, Waters read into the Congressional Record a memorandum of understanding in which former President Ronald Reagan's CIA director rejected any duty by the CIA to report illegal narcotics trafficking to the Department of Justice.

Kenneth Winston Starr (born July 21, 1946) is an American lawyer, a former federal Court of Appeals judge and Solicitor General who is most notable for his tenure as Independent Counsel while Bill Clinton was U. S. President. Starr was initially appointed to investigate the suicide death of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster and the Whitewater real estate investments of Bill Clinton. The three-judge panel charged with administering the Independent Counsel Act later expanded the inquiry into numerous areas including an extramarital affair that Bill Clinton had with Monica Lewinsky. After several years of investigation Starr filed the Starr Report which alleged that Bill Clinton had lied about existence of the affair during a sworn deposition. The allegation opened the door for the impeachment of Bill Clinton and the five-year suspension of Clinton's law license.

In 2009, he served as lead counsel defending California's Proposition 8 which banned same sex marriages in California.

Starr currently serves as the dean of Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu, California.

In February 2010, Starr was named 14th president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, to assume the role in June 2010. Starr, a member of the University Church of Christ in Malibu, California, announced that on his transition to Baylor he will affiliate with a Baptist congregation in Waco.

Seymour (Sy) Myron Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is a United States Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters.

His work first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. His 2004 reports on the US military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison gained much attention.
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