This weekend I put together a complete subscriber appreciation gift in just 2 hours. Here’s how, I used Ezine Articles website to find out some first class information about Kindle publishing. I drew up a list of 10 subjects so that that the report would be valuable and the subject matter would flow together.

I then searched the Ezine Articles website for 10 articles with quality content relating to the list I drew up. There are a lot of articles but as most of them are 400-500 words I found what I needed very quickly (approx 50 mins). The important consideration was quality and value. Always look at the expert authors first here is the link to my expert author page.

I copied and pasted the articles into an Open Office document, did a little formatting, added a cover, disclaimer and a resources page at the end. Voila’ a complete high quality subscriber appreciation gift in under 2 hours start to finish.

Here is the finished product, download HERE or click the graphic.

There are are few do’s and don’ts you need to observe to comply with the Terms of Service (TOS) but really they are just common sense. When authors publish an Ezine Article they give permission to reproduce the article they still retain copyright. No changes or editing is allowed and the author resource box must remain intact together with any links in the box or article. Also credit must be given to Ezine Articles as the source.

This helps to promote the authors work and their own products or website. As a courtesy contact the author to let them know you have reprinted their article and offer them a free copy of you report.

I don’t think of this method of product production as a quick fix but merely a way of collating quality content very quickly without having to write it all myself. There are limits on how many articles you can use in a calendar year limited at 25 per unique domain or 250 per year.

There are some other excellent article sites such as.

• Articlesbase
• Go Articles
• Article Alley
• List of Top 50 Article Directories by Page Rank

Each will have their own TOS, but don’t be tempted to mix and match from different sites as you could inadvertently break the terms of service on one or another of them particularly with article quotas.  Rob

Here are my STRICTLY LIMITED BONUSES for buying through my link.

• My personal help and support throughout the whole program via Skype, e-mail telephone etc no matter how long you too takes to complete the program. Real world price… Invaluable

•  My help and advice to create your own profitable product and a guaranteed promotion of your product to my entire list.

•  And something I have never done before! I am granting the Resale Rights to my own successful product 12 Roads to Success which has earned me in excess of $5000.

This sells on Clickbank for $27 on a daily basis. You will have the rights to resell this product AND keep 100% of the profits. I will also include the sales letter graphics and all the marketing materials you will need to put you miles ahead of the competition. The complete product ready to go. Here are my unique bonuses if you purcase through my link

Because of the nature of the bonuses they are strictly limited to the first 25 purchases through my link. You will see no doubt all kind of silly claims about the value of bonuses. But I won’t do that; all I will say is the bonuses are really priceless when it comes to building you own business.

Read my review of the One Month Mentor HERE.

Thanks for reading Rob..

Why?

Well the blog is the hub of your online activities a focal point for your customers and readers to catch up with you and your activities, special offers. And most importantly free advice (such as this).

The blog also acts as capture machine for subscribers e-mail addresses so that you can inform them when new content has been added. Did you notice the optin box and the newsletter list when this blog loaded?

There are a number of different blogging platforms which have there own advantages and disadvantages.

Free from Google is Blogger, I have used Blogger for product review sites such as John Thornhill’s One Month Mentor Training.  Blogger blogs are very easy to setup and easy to use and can be customised and monetised. They are mostly used for personal blogs and many of the Blogger blogs are exactly that.

The great advantage is that Blogger is free. The big disadvantage is that you do not own the blog so Google could remove it at any point with absolutely no comeback. You will loose at the content you have posted and all the hard work will be to no avail.

The real biggy is WordPress there are literally thousands of themes, plugins apps and widgets that you can use to customise WordPress, so no two sites will be exactly the same. At WordPress.com you can claim a free blog and take advantage the problem is that the blog will always have .wordpress.com as part of the URL.

There are some excellent examples of free blogs you can check out on the home page of WordPress.com, again this blog can be pulled at any time and you will have to start again.

The best all round solution to building your own brand or business is to have your own hosting and install your own WordPress blog on it. This has massive advantages over the free solutions.

• You can choose your unique URL to reflect your business or brand, this website uses WordPress and although it is starting to look dated I can change this very easily by updating the theme, adding plugins and widgets to make the visitor experience a good one.
• I own the blog.
• It has my name in the URL not blogspot or WordPress which of the two looks the most professional?

WordPress is very easy to setup and customise, there are lots of guides and tutorials available on the internet. But this can be very confusing if it is the first time you have installed and used WordPress. You could pay some one to do it all for you, or there are many excellent products on how to use WordPress most of which come with a heavy price tag.

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a product that could show you how to do all of this for just a few bucks. Well there is, so here’s the skinny of it I just came across something that you will want to check out quick before the price goes up drastically.

It is WordPress blog building at its finest by a guy Lane Bowers who’s been in the trenches learning what it’s like to build blogs for perfect results every time. More informaion HERE.

Take a look at just one of Lane’s blog video training reviews; Lane takes on more of the role of what you would expect a good friend to be like if you asked him to help you get started on creating your own WordPress blog.

It is as if he asked you to pull up a chair at his desk and he was walking you through what he does daily to continue growing his Blog.

He keeps it very basic and assumes that you have had no prior knowledge before he begins teaching you. If you are new to Internet Marketing then this would be an excellent starting point for you, as his Course continues teaching he includes items such as how to add a Gravatars to your Posts, changing the Header and the Site’s Background, setting up email accounts, etc. etc.

All in all, a very good WordPress Course! Highly recommended Rob…

This is becoming big business for Amazon and makes it very simple for Indie authors to publish their work. The great advantage of this service is that it is very cheap to do you do not need to approach any publishers and you have control over your own work.

This video is a complete walk through on how to publish a paperback book using Create Space.Click the image to play the video of click HERE.

For more excellent videos pop over to Barry’s Video Challenge. Till next time Rob..

Firstly that it is really easy to do AND to make money doing it…. But, why is there always a but? Amazon is very strict about what they will accept as content so it is important to get your Kindle books complying with the Amazon Terms of Service.

It is easy to fall foul of this and have books removed or your account terminated, this happened to thousands of Kindle sellers last month. The problem duplicate content; too many people uploading the same content.

How has this happened? Well how many e-mails have you had in recent months with some “Guru” selling gigabytes of PLR materials that you can use to compile your own books? Buyers were just uploading compilations of the PLR articles. Result massive amounts of the same content and a very poor customer experience.

The other problem was content that was freely available on the web being sold on Kindle. Amazon don’t like that, result take a sledge hammer to the problem. There is a better way, the way I use to make 800+ sales a month through Kindle.

Revised, expanded and improved “The Kindle Cash Machine” Version 2!

Bang up to date; simply copy my plan to a profitable Kindle business that pays you on the dot every single month. Learn why Format 8 and the Kindle Fire open up a whole new set of possibilities for making money. Included is my Kindle template the one I use for my own books, plus “The Amazon Cash Machine”.

Make money promoting similar Kindle books or any Amazon product for that matter. I show you how you can do this absolutely FREE.

Check it out this HERE this is as up to date as it gets.

For some FREE Kindle and Amazon training check out these videos

Listing on Kindle

KDP Select and Kindle Fire

And also drop by to Barry Wells video challenge for some more great information.

Rob……………….

Also I take a look at the new Kindle Format 8 developed for the Kindle Fire that allows a much better reading experience not only in colour but also supports excellent illustration for children’s books, graphic novels and any other type of product that requires the use of extensive illustration such as “How to Manuals”.

The Fire is rumoured to be coming to the UK just before Christmas and that opens up a lot of opportunities for small publishers like ourselves. Click the graphic to play the video.

If you find the video of help then I am just putting the finishing touches to the second edition of “The Kindle Cash Machine”  It’s Kindle Jim but not as well know it…

Take care… Rob

Why not pop over to Barry Wells’ Video Challenge for some more excellent Videos and advice.

Rob…

Here is a quick video that takes you through the process of listing a book for sale on Amazons Kindle plus very important information about the latest changes to Kindle and how it affects sellers and how to avoid getting your Kindle account blocked in the same way that thousands of sellers have in the past few weeks.

This video was shot for The Video Blog Challenge run by my good friend Barry Wells, when you have finished here take the opportunity to go over to Barry’s Blog and see video from other contributors to the challenge including Steve King, Dawn Kay, Mandy Allen and Barry himself.

Keep checking back as the challenge runs until March 29^th Enjoy Rob..

To upgrade, or not to upgrade – that is the question

Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of “outdated applications”

Or to take arms against the sea of software vendors

And by opposing them end my continual upgrade nightmare

Or just give in and take all the upgrades.

Not exactly the bard…. So what has brought this on, just a few days ago I wanted to do some very simple tasks on the computer. My morning went like this.

Logon:

• Upgrade your Flash Player
• Upgrade your Adobe Reader
• Upgrade your Vaio
• Upgrade Java Script

Haven’t done anything yet

• There are Windows updates for you to download
• Update Firefox
• Update Yahoo Mail
• Gmail Update

I accepted no upgrades except Yahoo as this was being forced upon us.

I only wanted to type a letter and send a few emails, ok check Facebook, changes there new feature! Time line blah blah…. Check blog…

• Update WordPress
• Update WordPress Plugins

The point, how much time could I have wasted on this lot, not very productive is it but we are brain washed into thinking that we need to have the latest this that and the other just to keep up.

I’m not a big fan of upgrades unless they either make thing easier for me or introduce features that I really will find useful.

I run Word 2003, it does everything and more than I need at present, tried 2007 which to me is as user friendly as a cornered rat, but I still get the app appearing every so often to run docx files that want me to buy the latest version.

2003 does it all, at least for now and there is also Open Office for ODT files, some companies such as Amazon Kindle do not like the docx format and is not supported on there website.

As far as graphics are concerned I do not run Photoshop, I use Paintshop Pro 5 which is about 10 years old, and again it does everything I need.

So: To Upgrade or Not To Upgrade.

That is the question! Rob….

How to Get Rich

By

Felix Denis

No it’s not one of the increasing numbers of self help books that “show you how to make a million in 10 seconds flat.” The book is described by Felix as an anti-self help book, its purpose to discourage you from even trying to get rich.

Laced with example of Felix’ wit, poetry and gob smacking anecdotes of his rise through the ranks of the magazine publishing business Felix shares his successes and disasters in equal measures and book pulls no punches in doing so.

How to Get Rich acts as both warning and inspiration for those determined to start out on the rocky road to wealth, it is joy to read and contains sage wisdom but none more so that this:

“Continue to weave new baskets”

OR

“Don’t put all your eggs in the one basket”

How many of us have been guilty of doing just that? I certainly have and have been burnt a few times particularly with eBay. Remember the Digital Delivery ban where a large number of businesses selling eBooks and software where wiped out virtually over night.

Or, have eBay changes had a detrimental effect of your business? It happened with mine as eBay changed the rules and decide to ban some of my products (which are freely available for sale on other eBay sites and high street stores). Some of my other products now failed to get on the all important first page because of eBay changes.

The mistake I made was simple; eBay was my strategy and all my eggs in one basket. So I started to make new baskets. I started to produce my own products starting with Plugin Auction Profits my strategy for trading on eBay and Amazon. I started to sell specialist books on Amazon which I buy for a few dollars at a time and flip for a greater price.

I now provide digital content for Amazon’s Kindle eBook platform; I have published my own physical book using Create Space POD (print on demand) service. I collected all these ways of making an extra income together as blueprints and produced 12 Roads to Success which became my first Warrior Forum Special Offer or WSO.

I am now branching out and creating websites for clients based on WordPress, mobile websites and other marketing services. The beauty is that if one of these sources of income dries up or disappears due to changes in Terms of Service I will still have lots of others.

Will I stop Weaving Baskets? No way, and I suggest you don’t stop either.

Rob