If you have a business or want to advance quickly in your career, the number one best thing you can do is establish yourself as an expert. You might think that expert status is something others confer on you, but it's very largely something that you do yourself! No one can agree that you're an expert if you don't keep up on the latest news and put your opinions out there. And there's no better way than with a book!
In the past, it was all but impossible to get a book published. Any writer knows that the process of getting the words down can take years -- but that's not all. Most writers also need an agent, even for nonfiction. That process can take six months to a year -- in some cases, far more. Once you have an agent, they have to "shop"
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Well, now there's an alternative. You can publish just about any book on the Amazon Kindle platform and make it available to millions of Kindle users as well as millions more who can view your book on other electronic platforms.
Kindle Publishing Versus Vanity Publishing
One of the biggest scams to hit any industry in the last decade has been the explosive rise of vanity publishing. In vanity publishing, you submit your manuscript to a shady operation that publishes it after you pay them a fee. You might get a few copies and might be able to sell a few dozen to friends and family, but in the end you're left with nothing tangible and the "publisher" has taken you for a ride. Don't do it!
By contrast, publishing on Kindle lets you maintain control over your work. You will still have to provide proofreading, copy editing, and other services -- but the truth is that vanity publishers don't provide these, anyway. You will also have to get someone to make a compelling, "book-like" cover if you want your offerings to stand out in the crowd. But beyond that, Kindle publishing is free and you get royalties per sale.
Why Kindle Publishing Beats Traditional Publishing Hands
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The ones who get the big storefront displays are considered sure bets by management and the corporate office. Those on the back shelves can expect to be "remaindered off" in a hurry -- in other words, if the store orders ten copies of a book and only sells two in a few weeks, they might only order two during the next sales cycle.
That means that, as coveted as a position on the bookstore shelves is, it's a losing proposition for most authors. For all their big talk, publishing houses don't generally spend much money promoting new authors. It's up to the author to do as much of the promotion as possible and, if they are favored, to write another book as quickly as possible so it, too, can be remaindered off. Success is the exception, not the rule.
In most cases, you'll have a fighting chance as a Kindle publisher that you won't get as an author newly in print from a big publishing house. That's because people will be able to discover your book when they do their ordinary, everyday Amazon searches. It's even easier for a new author to get attention from a reader who is shopping on the