Before you design a word, get a visual, and mental picture of your preferred audience. What do they want? Are they internet savvy? What magazines do they read? What do they spend discretionary money on?

Step Five. Write a Sales Letter for your book and any other product or service.

If you aren’t making book sales you want, then you either don’t have a sales letter for each book, or your present one lacks pizzazz and motivation. This is time to leave your “writer of book self” home, and bring out your “writer to sell your book” self.

Author’s story—

My first Web site had twenty+ fine books and kits in personal growth, book writing, and marketing. Sales never went over $200 a month. To correct that, I created a new site that focused on bookcoaching to include ten eBooks I wrote on book writing, self-publishing, online promotion, web copywriting, and marketing. For this second web site, I paid special attention to sales letters (without hype) for each teleclass, eBook, and bookcoaching opportunities to suit each visitor’s income and need.

Sales were $75 first month, and in four months they reached $2265. The next year they went to $3000 a month. Four years later, sales are over $4500 each month, and I still work only ten months and take four vacations a year.

Your bookcoach learned it all hard, slow way, but you don’t have to. Just be willing to open your mind to different skills you can certainly learn. You wrote a book, didn’t you? And you experienced a learning curve there too.

You have choice. Put a sales letter on your home page if you only want to market one thing—your book. Or, if you also want to promote a service and other books, put a strong headline on number one benefit of each book or service on your home page and link it to your sales letter on another page.

Some experts write long sales letters because they think you need to give enough information to help your potential buyer make an informed decision to buy. For email promotion use shorter sales letters and for web site, longer ones.

Yes, you can post your book on other web sites, but as an author/business person who is serious about promoting your book and creating a web presence, you will eventually want to create your own web site.

Secret 8: Delegate task, it always cheaper either in dollars or patience. Place an ad at local college and offer $30 to $45 per tape. I have found several through Business Centers at high schools and community centers. If interview is rare or precious, hire a professional service and pay higher rate. Have at least 10 ways you can get a tape transcribed reasonably and fast at your disposal. Start with Yellow Pages. Rate them on fastest and quickest. Consider using FedEx to deliver and pick up tapes, for safety, and to save time. I never recommend sending tape out of your country to save money.

Secret 9: Don't sign a contract, ever, if they have a clause in it, "All notes, tapes, materials and transcripts must be turned over to publisher." Cross it out and don't agree to this. If publisher is paying for transcription and your time separately for interview, they are yours.

Secret 10: Prepare questions ahead of time and stick to them. Preparation saves time all around. If you are not sure what questions to ask, ask publisher what questions do they want to have answered when they give you assignment. It is a good procedure to provide questions before hand to interviewee. This helps them prepare. If they read from their typed notes then ask questions differently or drift with one question then return. They will usually stop reading, think, and not return to their notes.

Secret 11: If you are a fast typist you will most likely be able to type and capture 75% of conversation. Learn to leave out repetitious information and use a keyboard shorthand. After call, review notes immediately and expand shorthand. If you use a common shortcut, use "find and replace" in your word processor as a time saver. Also explain that you will be typing their response so that sound of keyboard doesn't distract from conversation. If you prefer, you can even ask for permission: "I hope you don't mind, I'm a fast typist so I prefer to type my notes as we talk." It’s like asking for permission but not quite.

(C) Copyright 2005, Catherine Franz. All rights reserved.