How Authors Can Use Their Books as a Basis for an Internet Business
Whether you have a fiction or nonfiction book, there’s a lot more gold in that tome than you may realize.
Let me show you what I mean:
We’ll start with a nonfiction book we’ll call 15 WAYS TO START AN ONLINE BUSINESS. And we’ll agree that:
• The book has been published (whether from a traditional publisher or self-published doesn’t matter).
• Each of the 15 ways has an individual chapter.
• You have a website for your book.
Now you take those 15 chapters – and you plan and record a one-hour teleseminar around each one. Voila! You now have 15 teleseminars that you can sell off your website. And as easy as this you now have an internet business.
Of course, as your mindset focuses on having an internet business based on your nonfiction book, you’ll begin to see other opportunities. Perhaps there’s an expert in a related area who you would like to interview and then sell that interview. Or perhaps you’d like to offer one-on-one coaching through the internet or telephone.
Once you’ve done all the heavy lifting of creating a good book, don’t stop there. Keep looking for how you can build on that basis.
And what if you have a fiction book? Yes, it isn’t quite as easy as a nonfiction book to use as a basis for an online business, but we’re writers – let’s use our imagination to think of a possible scenario for this endeavor:
Let’s say your novel, like my novel MRS. LIEUTENANT, takes place during the Vietnam War. There are many people alive today who are too young to have any knowledge about this war. What if you wrote ebooks about the war from the point of view of the people in the different countries involved in the fighting?
You could do research and write an ebook about the United States’ role in the Vietnam War and include the U.S. military point of view as well as that of the U.S. war protestors’ point of view. And then you could do research and write an ebook about Australia’s role in the Vietnam War and include the Australians’ opposing viewpoints.
Okay, maybe this isn’t an exciting example. How about – if you’ve written a romance novel – doing research and writing ebooks about dating relationships?
One ebook might be “The 7 Ways You Can Blow a Relationship in Only 10 Minutes.” Would people buy that ebook? I think so. And I also think people might buy a series of teleseminars that you host with different dating experts.
Now does this romance/dating example get your thinking cap fired up? It does mine – if only I could write a good romance novel ….
Step back from being the author of your published book and instead think about how you can develop your book’s “brand” into an online business. You’ll probably be surprised how many good ideas you can come up with.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is a National Internet Business Examiner at http://budurl.com/internetbusiness as well as a book author, and her company http://www.MillerMosaicLLC.com provides internet marketing information with easy-to-implement solutions to promote your brand, book or business. On July 1st her company is launching the Miller Mosaic Internet Marketing Program.
So, I have finished a book, am looking for the best way to get it into the public’s hand. I have thought about self-publishing, but am undecided right now. I have thought about blogging but have run into a bit of a problem. My book is epic fantasy. I am not sure I could come up with enough blogging ideas for “How I write epic fantasy.” Do you have any ideas what I could blog about? You don’t have to make it a long response, I know your time is short, but if you could give me an idea of what subject matter, I could go from there I think.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Andee
Andee —
One idea is to have a blog in which you review fantasy books by other authors. And you can have other fantasy authors write guest posts for you. In other words, make your blog of interest to readers of fantasy fiction. And you can share some pieces of your own epic fantasy as individual blog posts.
If you are going to start blogging now, do start on the best foot by getting a self-hosted blog (like this one) rather than a hosted blog.
Here is a link to posts about effective websites (and a blog is a website) — https://www.millermosaicllc.com/best-website-blog-posts/
And my company does build WordPress websites/blogs for authors if you’re interested.