ACTIVATE INTUITION

The Internet makes it possible for virtually anyone to post a thought and to see the truth of that thought resonate with others throughout the world. I had an experience recently that brought that home to me in a poignant way.

I had published an online article about intuition and dreams. The article discussed that many famous novels had come to their authors in dreams: Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Steven King’s Misery, for example. The article went on to discuss that the solution to many practical problems had also come through dreams, as it had for Elias Howe’s invention of the sewing machine and Jack Nicklaus’ golf swing. Finally, the article noted that many famous songs, including Paul McCartney’s Yesterday, had come to the songwriters in their dreams.

When the article was published, I received the following message from a reader:

“This may sound strange, but it relates directly to your article. I remember that the night before the first time I ever made out with a girl I had a dream that was basically an instructional on how to kiss a girl. I’m sure it was my subconscious sensing that the probability of that happening was increasing, and pulling together all knowledge I had on the subject before the event. Not as cool as inventing the sewing machine, or writing ‘Yesterday,’ but still the right advice at the right time!”

I loved this practical, heart warming tale not only of intuition in a young life, but also of the recognized interconnection between the intuition described in the article and the intuition acting in the young dream. Just for fun, I typed “how to kiss a girl” into Google–and it returned 100 million results!

The reader’s message and my Google search caused me to think about intuition and the Internet. In the final analysis, intuition is the awareness of the interconnectedness of all things. The famous French paleontologist Pierre Teillhard de Chardin theorized in the middle of the last century that humanity’s next great evolutionary step was to develop a global mind of consciousness and information.

“A global mind of consciousness and information.” That’s a pretty good description of intuition, and an even better description of the Internet.

A global mind of consciousness and information that anyone can use—even for learning how to handle your first romantic kiss.

Publishing a book traditionally required capital and the expert knowledge of many different businesses, including print manufacturing, retail distribution, and book marketing. But the recent emergence of ebook readers, easily-accessible online ebook retailers, and exploding world-wide Internet access has turned the exclusive and expensive world of print book publishing into the democratic and inexpensive world of ebook self-publishing.

Where to Find eBook Publishing Answers

However, the essential problems of print publishing remain for ebooks: how does the ebook self-publisher deal with acquiring the knowledge to publish a book and the expense of book publishing?

The Internet provides the answer to the knowledge issue: many excellent, current, and free websites (http://www.bookmarket.com/ebooks.htm ), ebooks (http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/lets-get-digital/ ), articles (http://bit.ly/eKebQi), and forums (http://www.kindleboards.com/ ) exist on every facet of ebook writing, production, distribution, and marketing. So it is possible to learn most of the intricacies of ebook publishing on your own, and the medium is evolving so rapidly that staying current with new developments, through forums for example, may actually put you in the forefront of ebook publishing knowledge.

Steps to Publish an eBook

But what about the expense of publishing an ebook? What will it cost to accomplish the following ebook publishing tasks:

• research what ebooks you might want to write that would also appeal to enough world-wide ebook readers to make the project worthwhile;
• research the essential elements necessary to make the ebook you decide to write accurate, interesting, and complete;
• write the ebook and ancillary listing/marketing descriptions;
• create an attractive cover and internal illustrations;
• develop relevant Internet links for appropriate ebook appendices;
• ascertain the appropriate book category/genre for the ebook;
• find a key-word savvy title;
• professionally edit the writing;
• get the writing into ebook- reader-friendly format;
• acquire an ISBN (http://bit.ly/oPqby ) for the ebook;
• figure out what to charge for the ebook;
• upload the ebook to the relevant ebook retailers’ sites;
• develop a website to assist in marketing the ebook;
• market the ebook;
• everything else.

Traditional publishers charge writers many thousands of dollars (in relinquished royalties) for these services. Even one-stop-shop ebook publishers charge $5,000+ for some combination of these services (http://bit.ly/sp8U9O) . And that’s a lot of sold ebooks!

How to Minimize the Cost of eBook Publishing Through Outsourcing

Some of these tasks you’ll have to do yourself, like overall marketing, or pay to have done professionally, like editing. The rest of the publishing tasks you could learn how to do and then perform all by yourself; but then you’re a publisher, not a writer. Is there any way to get some of these publishing tasks done almost for free in terms of your time and money?

Enter the world of outsourcing. Major corporations have been doing it for years. It’s now possible for writers to find help with basic research, keywords, search engine optimization, marketing, writing, graphics, ebook formatting and uploading, website development, and many other aspects of ebook publishing by using world-wide freelancing at astonishingly low prices ($5-$10 an hour). Here is a list of some of the major outsourcing websites and how to use each:  http://bit.ly/etJgr7 .

My favorite is oDesk. Why?

• oDesk is easy to learn and use;
• Many contractors apply for my job within hours of posting;
• oDesk makes it possible to interview prospective employees, view their work, read reviews from prior employers, see their ratings, and try them out on small projects;
• Payment is through credit card managed by oDesk with a three-day review/challenge period of the contractor’s weekly time records. (My last weekly bill for website maintenance was $1.87.); and
• The experienced oDesk contractors know what they’re doing. My current websites were created by oDesk contractors at a small fraction of what I paid for prior sites using local developers. Check out the quality of their work: www.ActivateIntuition.com and www.JimWawro.com .

My approach to an oDesk project is to define the job in my own mind and refine it until I know exactly what I really want the oDesk contractor to do. Then I search for two different contractors to do the same job, one very experienced worker ($10+/- per hour) and one just starting out ($5 or less per hour), but with an interesting online presentation. Both invariably provide valuable input; I’m reasonably confident that I’ve covered their expert field; and I can pick and choose the best ideas from each. In this way, I can leverage my unique knowledge of my ebook project with their expert knowledge of how to professionally perform the relevant publishing task at a tiny cost in terms of my time and money.

How to Write eBooks That You’re Sure Readers Want to Read

I recently decided to publish a number of ebooks and to blog about the experience (http://bit.ly/vhcwap ). So, my first question as a writer/publisher was: “What do I write about?” To answer that question, I determined to do market research on what readers want to read about in the areas that I want to write about. One of the areas I want to write about is intuition, the subject of my latest book Ask Your Inner Voice and my current 75-post blog www.ActivateIntuition.com/blog . To do the market research, I posted the following on oDesk:

Need assistance in identifying the largest online target market for an ebook to be developed from existing blog posts about intuition. Research to identify and confirm the relevant intuition phrases most often searched for (intuition, inner voice, sixth sense, hunch, guidance, creativity, gut feeling; plus: what is, how to, tips, fastest way to, practical, etc.) by using Google Keyword Tool, and other ways to identify the largest intuition target market online. Then need recommendations for ebook content and ebook title based on SEO phrases customarily searched for by the largest intuition target market online.

Choosing among many applicants, I found two who researched the question and concluded the following:

TOP INTUITION KEYWORDS WITH IRRELEVANT SEARCHES DELETED

GOOGLE PHRASE	GLOBAL MONTHLY	COST PER CLICK	TOP SEARCHES
intuition	368,000	1.05	Lyrics of 4 popular songs, but then intuition definition/meaning
hunch	60,500	0.40	hunch
creative thinking	60,500	1.11	creative thinking
gut feeling	14,800	0	gut feeling
creative problem solving	14,800	1.13	creative/critical thinking
inner voice	9,900	1.20	the inner voice

 TITLES USING TOP INTUITION KEYWORD GLOBAL SEARCHES

The Short How To of Intuition, Hunches, Gut Feelings, and Creative Problem Solving

Your Intuition, Hunches, and Gut Feelings: Creative Thinking in a Nutshell

Intuition, Hunch, or Gut Feeling: Proven Tips To Creative Problem Solving

Relevant Market Research for $38

This oDesk job cost approximately $38 and provided me with useful market research identifying what readers already search the Internet for in areas that I like to write about. So now I know how to position that ebook. And for each succeeding step in the ebook publishing process, I now know how to find the expert publishing knowledge I need and the technical publishing help I have to have to publish my ebook, all at a tiny price.

Leave a Comment

That’s how I’m going about publishing my own ebooks. But the ebook publishing world is changing fast and creative writers/publishers are constantly coming up with innovative ways to make the ebook publishing process better, faster, and cheaper. I would love to know your ways. If you have a suggestion about ebook publishing, or if you have found the information in this post useful, could you please click on the “Comments” link and leave a message?

Thanks for your attention.

Jim Wawro, author (Ask Your Inner Voice), executive coach, and former senior partner in a 1400-lawyer firm, discovered while trying cases that some people have learned the secret to actively calling on their own intuition whenever they need it. Jim’s books and coaching reveal proven methods of accessing your own inner wisdom to know what you really want and how to get it. Learn more at www.ActivateIntuition.com.

1. Ever since Gutenberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Gutenberg ), the publishing industry has effectively monopolized what books the world reads. Why? Producing printed books from written words requires capital and the expert knowledge of many businesses, including print manufacturing, book marketing, and distribution. However, recent events have rendered this key intermediary between reader and writer no longer exclusive.
2. Many online facilities (like Kindle Direct Publishing, https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin), now provide an easy way for anyone to upload an ebook in an hour and receive a 70% royalty on sales, indefinitely. Contrast this with a typical traditional-publisher scenario: one year to find an agent/publisher; a publishing contract that (after the agent’s fee) nets the author 10-15% of the book’s sales price; another year for the traditional publisher to actually publish the book; a substantial portion of the marketing effort for the book expected to be learned and performed by the author (http://bit.ly/cvKOfU ); and the book allowed to go out of print by the publisher after a year or two.
3. On December 15, 2011 Amazon reported sales of one million Kindles per week. http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1640193&highlight= .
4. The publishing industry is being shaped by the same Internet pressures that shaped the music industry. When is the last time you bought a CD instead of downloading what you wanted from the Internet? Can books be far behind? A convincing (free) analysis of the inevitability of ebooks over print books may be found here: http://davidgaughran.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/lets-get-digital-by-david-gaughran6.pdf . And book length, one of the traditional barriers to publishing, is likely to fall. Amazon has a special category (Kindle Singles, http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_356729702_1?ie=UTF8&node=2486013011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=16V2W84QTW0WKWNGXNJE&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_p=1309830742&pf_rd_i=1000700491) for “compelling ideas expressed at their natural length.”
5. A writer-published ebook with a striking cover, professional editing, expert formatting, interesting blurb, and a readable story is indistinguishable from the ebook offering of a traditional publisher, except that the traditional publisher’s overhead will never allow it to compete with the writer-publisher’s ebook on price.
6. The Internet has provided marketing insight never before available to book publishers: keyword tools (like https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=8494762518&__u=3577777158&__o=cues&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS#search.none) show the specific topics that known numbers of readers currently search for worldwide. Knowing exactly what topics quantifiable numbers of readers are most interested in is far better marketing knowledge than guesses as to what readers would like to read about or writers’ knowledge of what they’d like to write about. Writers can now quickly find out what readers want to read about and write books that satisfy those needs.
7. For the first time in human history, anyone can now easily make a lasting contribution to humanity’s collective thoughts and experiences. That contribution is why writers write (http://activateintuition.com/why-writers-write-2/ ) and why readers read. And why to publish an ebook.

So, my intuition is to take the plunge, publish an ebook, and blog about the experience. Why not join me and read about the journey?

Jim Wawro, author (Ask Your Inner Voice), executive coach, and former senior partner in a 1400-lawyer firm, discovered while trying cases that some people have learned the secret to actively calling on their own intuition whenever they need it. Jim’s books and coaching reveal proven methods of accessing your own inner wisdom to know what you really want and how to get it. Learn more at www.ActivateIntuition.com.