Search Engines

While having your own Web site is beneficial, it will serve no purpose sitting idly in cyber space. The goal with your Web site is to increase its presence in search engine results, which are operated off of keywords. Keywords are common terms typed by Internet users into the search engine, inevitably drawing results in the form of various Web sites. The use of basic Search Engine Optimizaiton (SEO) will help your site to rank well for your top tier keywords.  The goal of SEO is to make your site the most relevant on the entire Web for your keywords.
Techniques like:

• Optimize the Title tag on all pages of your site. Be sure to try to use the same keywords in the Title tag that are used on that page
• Optimize Content. Be sure to use your most relevant keywords throughout the body of each page. Try sticking with 2 or 3 keywords per page so as not to dilute the effectiveness of each.
• Create links back to your site from other relevant sites
• Create a targeted call to action in your meta description. This text is what will be displayed in the search engine results.

Services are available to increase your site’s presence on the World Wide Web, but most require money or other resources in order to participate.

“You can put your entire manuscript on Google Books,” Coers said. “You upload it to be put into the search results. Whenever people click on your title, it shows an excerpt of the book and a link to where you can buy it. The only issue with Google Books is that you must have
an ISBN number to use it.”

Instead, Coers suggests probing your site in as many ways possible. Services such as Google Books are extremely useful, but nothing works as well as the good, old-fashioned self-promotion discussed earlier in this blog. The key is to utilize as many avenues as possible in order
to get your name out there.

“By creating the blogs and other tools we discussed, your website is going to get scanned anyways,” he said. “Getting as many sites to link to yours is the best way to expose yourself.”

Visit wwaow.com for more information about self publishing books.

The term independent publishing (more commonly
known as “self publishing”) refers to the publishing of
a book by its creator rather than by a traditional, thirdparty
publisher. Self publishing (while always
in existence) has gained momentum over the past two
decades thanks to technology such as Print-on-Demand
and the World Wide Web. It has given amateur writers the
power of ownership over their materials and how they are
marketed to potential readers.

Unlike many independent-publishing services, however,
Wwoaw aims to work with large publishing companies by
acting as an outlet for rookie authors. Rather than take
a chance contracting with brand-new writers, publishing
companies can look to Wwaow to see whose material is
high in demand. Wwaow gives authors a chance to shine
by posting excerpts of their work on its online database,
which often takes the guesswork out of the millions of
manuscripts publishers are faced with daily. By self
publishing through Wwaow, you have the opportunity to
show what you and your work are made of.

Besides acting as a gateway into the mainstream,
independent publishing has increased in popularity for
the following reasons:

• The author wants a greater return on sales than a
  traditional publishing company would permit
• The topic-at-hand is of interest only to a very niche
  market of readers.
• The information is pertinent only to a certain groups,
  such as government agencies, and is not for retail sale
• The author wants to retain complete editorial control
  over the material
• The content is of a “taboo” matter that publishers are
  wary of printing and distributing

Additionally, when just starting out, the Print-on-Demand
services of Wwoaw make much better financial sense.
Rather than investing $500 – $2,000 for dozens of copies
of your book, a new author will appreciate the pennies
saved by processing an order only after it is received.
This concept is especially true for niche markets such as
businesses or government agencies, which have a limited
or even definite number of readers for their materials.
Processing and distributing such orders through Wwaow
will cut down on printing costs drastically, saving on your
bottom line.

You can learn more about self publishing books at www.wwaow.com

Good luck!

WWAOW has announced sponsoring a Romance story writing contest on PublishYourself.com. Grand Prize winner will receive $250. Top 10 stories and poems will be included in a compilation book and each winner will receive a free copy.

Submit your love story or poem and be eligible to be included in the book, to be published in March 2009. After your story has been submitted story, be sure to tell your friends and family. Winners will be decided by visitor voting on the PublishYourself.com site.

Register for a free account to upload your story and to be eligible to vote for your favorites.

Good luck!

UPDATE: All issues have been resolved when attempting to upload stories for the Christmas story contest. If you gave it a try and received an error, please try again.
We apologize for inconvenience. PublishYourself.com

WWAOW is sponsoring a Christmas holiday story writing contest on PublishYourself.com. Grand Prize winner will receive $250. Top 10 stories will be included in a compilation book and each winner will receive a free copy.

The Christmas holidays are the inspiration for stories all over the world. Submit your own Christmas, holiday or winter story or poem and be eligible to be included in our holiday story book, to be published in Jan. 2009. Once you submit your story, be sure to tell your friends and family. Winners will be decided by visitor voting on the PublishYourself.com site.

Register for a free account to upload your story and to be eligible to vote for your favorites.

Good luck!

The 2008 Haunted Writing Contest Winners Compilation Book – Quiet
Featuring Grand Prize Winning author Dale Moses plus 28 bonus stories is now available on WWAOW.

The winners were chosen by popular vote on the publishyourself.com website.

If you work for a Church or are in charge of a Church’s publications, then you have an excellent way to increase revenues for your organization – by publishing books!

Right now, many churches sell DVDs and tapes of their services. This makes sense because it is very easy to make just a few DVDs or tapes at a time. As they sell, you can make more using a home computer or VCR.

Now with WWAOW, it is possible to make books on-demand – the same way you do now with your video offerings. In fact, offering the video as well as book formats in a package is one of the most popular ways of delivering your organization’s message!

Here are some great ideas of ways your Church organization can use books:

• Offer books as a way increase donations and to offer as gifts at fundraisers
• Create workbooks and daily devotions books for members to use during the week
• Create a “Welcome Book” for new members to welcome them into the church and provide them with some background information and history of the church
• Package videos of sermons with your books so your members have both
• Create custom Hymnals – even incorporating more modern music, and music that is written by your choir and members!

Formatting your own book for publishing on WWAOW is incredibly easy. Just follow these three steps:

1. Set the Document Dimensions and Margins
2. Set up your Styles and Apply Them
3. Add Sections and Breaks to your Book

Now, we’ll explain each of these points in detail:

Set the Document Dimensions and Margins

The first thing you do is go to File => Page Setup. This will bring up your Page Setup screen. Like this:

You set up your Paper size (6×9 is the most popular), then your Margins and Layout tabs. Make sure to apply your changes to the “whole document”, not “Selected Text”.

Set up Your Styles and Apply Them

Now, go to Format => Styles and Formatting. This will bring up your list of Styles. Like this:

By Clicking on the drop arrow next to each format, you can modify the Font face, size and other attributes. Keep in mind that it is usually best for your Normal text to be a Serif font like Times, whereas Headings and Sub Heads usually use a Sans Serif Font like Arial.

If you are publishing on WWAOW then the fonts supported are:

• Arial
• Courier new
• Georgia
• Times new roman
• Trebuchet
• Verdana

Once you have your styles set up, all you have to do is select the text you want to apply a style to and then click on the appropriate style (as shown above).

The biggest reason to do this is that if you decide later on you want to change the look of your book, all you have to do is change the setting in your Style’s, and your entire book will be instantly updated!

Add Sections and Breaks to Your Book

If you have been working with long texts in Word before, then you know it’s virtually impossible to use the “Enter” key to get all your Chapters to start on their own pages. That’s because if you make any changes at the front of the document, then all the other pages will shift, and then you have to go back through the entire book to fix them.

That’s why you should add Section Breaks for each Chapter of your book. This keeps everything flowing correctly. Here’s how to do it:

1. Place your curser at the end of each Chapter.
2. Go to Insert => Break (The Break Screen will display as above).
3. Select “Continuous”, then Click “Ok”
4. Now, Go to Insert => Break again
5. This time select “Page Break” and click “Ok”

This will insert a section break, and then a page break in your document; allowing you to edit content anywhere in your Word document without worrying about how the Chapters will flow.

By creating the Section Break using the “Continuous” option, you give yourself the ability to create custom headers and footers for each Chapter.

So, you see. With a little finesse, you can make great looking books without paying an expensive designer to typeset your book for you.

Should you build a website for your book?

Of course you should! In fact, there are few things that can help you sell more books than to have a website dedicated to your book’s success.

If you’ve never built a website before, then this may seem like a daunting task. Fortunately, building a website for your book is extremely easy and FREE!

Here’s how to do it:

1. Create an account on Google’s Blogger system (https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount?service=blogger). It is important to think about your blog’s name because it will appear like this: yourblog.blogspot.com. So, if the name of your book is “The Happy Chef”, then you might name your blog thehappychef.blogspot.com.
2. Once you have created your account, go to the Dashboard for your blog and click on the “Layout” link. You can customize the look of your blog here by clicking the “Pick a New Template” link.
3. Now, you can start putting content on your website. This is easy. Just click on the “+ New Post” link on your dashboard and start writing! You can format your text, add pictures, insert hyperlinks to make everything look like you want.
4. When you have finished your first post, just click on the Publish button, and it will show up on your site! 

There are a number of other Blogging systems out there if you prefer to work with something else. A couple others you might investigate are WordPress and Typepad.

Regardless of the system you choose, there is no reason to spend a lot of money (or a lot of time) building a website. The most important thing is to go ahead and do it!

Once you have a website, you have a platform you can use to promote your books with advertising and word-of-mouth marketing techniques.

Learn more about how to promote your book at www.wwaow.com!

Considering publishing a book? What about a book about religion?

If you’ve been thinking about publishing a religious book, then you are not alone. Religious publications have exploded in recent years. In fact, according to BookWire, the number of new titles published under the religious category increased 298% between 1993 and 2004 – more than twice the growth rate of all other categories.

In fact, according to the American Association of Publishers, sales of religious books increased 50% during 2003 alone.

Divine intervention? Not necessarily. According to a 2004 article in the Christian Science Monitor, some of this growth can be attributed to self-reported figures from some of the largest publishing houses that have begun combining religious books and self-help books into the same category.

Why would they do this? Because it helps them sell more books of course!

Many self-published authors recognize the potential of religious publishing. Ever since the explosive popularity of Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life with more than 20 million copies sold, many publishing companies have jumped on the religious publication bandwagon, and begun to actively seek religious books to add to their catalogs. In fact, some publishing industry analysts have found it necessary to pull the sales figures of Rick Warren’s books out of their data because they skew the entire sector!

Wow, that is successful. But, what does it mean to you?

Even if your book is not directly religious in the traditional sense. It may sell well within the religious community. Just as large publishing houses have begun re-branding the self-help category into the religious one, you can too.

After all, one of the keys to selling more books is to broaden the scope of the market you sell to; and religion is billions of people strong!