Why Becoming an Author Can Help Your Business

Why Becoming an Author Can Help Your Business (and How to Become One, Easily!)

Why Becoming an Author Can Help Your Business

Becoming an author can help your business in many ways.

The wonderful thing about today’s digitally advanced world is that anyone can become an author. Yes, ANYONE.

If you’re an entrepreneur or business owner, there are 3 reasons why you should consider publishing a book or an e-book (or both!). You will learn these 3 reasons in this article.

You will also see and hear proof of how becoming an author can help your business from 4 real people I know!

Plus, you will learn how to become an author within months, easily!

I will also outline the steps for how to write a book and give you additional information regarding printing and formatting your book.

You can even watch a video of the steps to becoming an author. (This is Video #2. I did a Facebook Live video about the contents of this article before this post was published. This LIVE is Video #1.)

And… you will see that becoming an author is easy if you have help (and patience) and follow these exact steps to becoming a self-published author on Amazon/KDP.

Video #1: Why Becoming an Author Can Help Your Business + How to Become One, Easily!

1: Becoming an author adds credibility (+ several other things)!

The first way that becoming an author can help your business is by adding more credibility to yourself as an expert in your business field—whatever field your entrepreneurial skills happen to lie in.

Becoming an author can help your business because adds prestige to your life and your business.

It also gives you bragging rights and allows you to truthfully say, “I am an author!”

Becoming an author can help your business in other ways, too. It can lead to other opportunities, such as creating more books, having book signings, and even creating courses based on your books, which will help you earn more money!

2: Becoming an author will help your business because you will earn extra passive income by selling your books and/or e-books!

There are three types of income: portfolio income, active income, and passive income.

Portfolio income is income from investments, dividends, interest, and capital gains.

Active income is generally defined as income earned from selling a service.

Passive income is defined as money you can earn on an ongoing basis that doesn’t require any effort except for the initial work, such as rental income, affiliate income, or book/e-book royalties.

It’s always nice to receive an email notification saying that a deposit has been made into your account! If you become an author, this will definitely help your business profits skyrocket!

3: If you don’t publish a book, you are missing out on a huge market, so becoming an author will help your business reach new customers!

A lot of people are on Amazon as readers, not as consumers of your product or your services, but you can easily convert them to consumers if you publish and sell an e-book.

Why and how?

As a business owner, you are probably already on social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) and you already have a bunch of people on your email list… so you are already reaching a ton of people. That’s great, but you still aren’t reaching the Amazon audience.

There are millions of people on Amazon who are readers. They like digesting stories and learning new information. (People buy books for many reasons.) If you don’t have a book to sell on there, you’re missing out!

If you publish a book that is based on something related to your business, then you can put it on Amazon and tap into that market. You can use your e-book as a funnel to take those readers from Amazon and funnel them to your website to your products, to your services, or to whatever it is that you’re offering! How? Just include some hyperlinks in your e-book and entice readers to click on them!

Amazon will even help you make sales! If you’ve ever bought anything from Amazon, you already know that Amazon recommends certain products by saying, “People who bought this also bought…”

Clearly, Amazon is THE way to go if you want to earn some extra cash and tap into a new market! Becoming an author can help your business become more profitable! Read More

12 Benefits of Being a Freelance Editor

 

A picture of me as a freelance editor with a red editing pencil - for the article called 12 Benefits of Being a Freelance Editor

Almost everyone knows that I am a freelance editor.

(Yes, that’s really me in the picture, too!)

I love editing. I love words and I love making them perfect.

Every time I read something, I am constantly editing what I read. I can’t tell you how many books I have read in which I have found mistakes! I have often thought of contacting the editors at the publishing houses and informing them of the mistakes I found, but I have never taken action on doing that. I probably should.

Instead, I have decided to offer my editing services to others as a freelance editor. I’ve been doing this since 2014… and I love it!

I love the freelance lifestyle and all that it offers. In particular, I love the benefits of being a freelance editor.

Here are 12 benefits I enjoy as a freelance editor:

Editor Benefit #1: I can work at home.

I live in a city that has very cold weather for the majority of the year. For about five or six months of the year, we have snow and sub-zero temperatures. For that reason, I like staying indoors. The freelance editing lifestyle I lead allows me to work from home. Not having to commute to work is an excellent benefit for me!

Editor Benefit #2: I can set my own hours.

We all have schedules in our lives that we generally follow, but no one has my exact schedule. I often work in the wee hours of the morning, when it is super quiet.

I like being a freelance editor because I can work whenever I want.

Editor Benefit #3: I get paid to learn new things.

Depending on the type of book that I am editing, I often learn new things. For example, in the last book I edited, I learned what drag litters were. For those of you who don’t know, drag litters are fashioned out of tent poles that are lashed to the sides of a horse with the opposite ends dragging on the ground, which are attached to some kind of platform that can be used to transport gear such as tents and food or to transport injured people.

Sometimes I even learn new words. Just because I am a freelance editor does not mean that I know every single word in the dictionary!

Sometimes I learn other things, too, depending upon the subject matter of the book I am editing. When I edit non-fiction books, I reap the benefits of learning whatever it is the author is teaching others. Being allowed to read such things for free is an honor. And even better than reading them for free is the fact that I get paid to read them!

Editor Benefit #4: I get to keep my skills sharp.

I am a certified English teacher by trade, and doing freelance editing allows me to constantly use my skills. As a result, my skills never wane. Instead, they are kept sharp by the constant work that I do.

Editor Benefit #5: I don’t have to look for work.

Many freelance writers and editors often struggle with finding work. Not me. I have never looked for a freelance editing job! Instead, people come to me.

The reason they come to me is that I have received excellent testimonials from others. While I initially offered free editing services in my attempts to market myself as a freelance editor, I now simply respond to emails I receive and give a sample edit to those potential clients. If they like my work, then they will hire me (as long as they can afford me!), which is usually the case.

I’m also listed in this hugely popular list of book editors. Many of my clients have mentioned that they found me there. (Thanks again, Dave!)

Because editing books is a time-consuming process, when I accept a huge editing gig, it generally means that I am going to be busy and employed for at least 2 or 3 months.

Generally, during that time, I receive inquiries about other editing gigs and so I schedule them for when I am finished my current one. That way, I never have to look for work! It is already lined up for me! Read More

the about me widget and what it looks like

Benefits of using “about.me” (+ how to get FREE social media buttons for your blog)

Have you heard of the site called about.me?

Do you use it to help brand yourself and your website?

I do, and I really like it. I also like the numerous benefits I get from using this completely free service. I learned about this service when I first started blogging, and today I am going to share several things with you about about.me.

the about.me widget and what it looks like

Definition + Some Benefits

Simply put, about.me is a free service that lets you create a beautiful one-page website that’s all about you.

About.me makes it easy for people to learn about you and find your content on the web.

Get your content found with this free service! #bloggers #blogtips

Click to tweet

It is also a great place where you can:

  • meet new people
  • gain new readers for your books (if you are an author), and/or
  • potentially get new clients (if you are a freelancer).

You can also enhance your online presence by utilizing this service. Note that anyone can use about.me. 

The Biggest Benefit for Bloggers: FREE Social Media Buttons

If you are a blogger who uses WordPress, you can also get free social media buttons for your blog, which is one of the reasons I like this service. About.me integrates with WordPress and allows bloggers to enable a particular widget on their sites. 

If you are a blogger who uses Blogger as your blogging platform, don’t feel left out just yet; I’ve included steps you can take, too. Please find them below, under the heading “For Blogger Bloggers.” 🙂

Get FREE #socia­lmedia buttons here! #bloggers #blogtips

Click to tweet

How to Get the Buttons:

In order to get the social media buttons to show up on your blog, you need to:

  1. Create a page on about.me (if you don’t already have one!)
  2. Add all of your social media profiles to it using the instructions shown in the following image:screenshot of the about.me apps with instructions for how to add them
  3. Add the about.me widget to the sidebar on your blog
  4. Add the URL of your about.me page to the appropriate field
  5. Check the box that says “Apps”
  6. Click “Save”

I have included a screenshot of the widget settings below for your convenience.

about.me widget options

How to Add the about.me widget to your WordPress Blog

It has occurred to me that you might need a few more instructions to get set up, depending on which form of WordPress you use, so I have also included the steps you can take to add the about.me widget to your blog, and have included a screenshot of what it looks like in your blog’s back end.

For WordPress.com users:

  1. Log in and go to Widgets in your Appearance section.
  2. Drag the about.me widget to your preferred Widget Area.
  3. Add your about.me username and configure your widget.

For WordPress.org (Self-Hosted) users:

If your blog is self-hosted, download the widget.

how the about.me widget looks in WordPress via a screenshot with important sections highlighted

For Blogger Bloggers:

I know not everyone uses WordPress. So, if you are a Blogger user, don’t worry! You can use these instructions for embedding your page. I’ve prepared some screenshots for you, too, because the “Embed Page” is hard to find. 🙁 You may find more answers on the about.me support page, too. You can also customize the embed code.

Steps to get the Embed code:

1. Click the “share” arrow while viewing your about.me page.

2. Click the “Embed” button on the window that pops up.

3. Select the blogging platform from the given choices.

4. Copy the code and then paste it into your blog post OR widget text box.

The following screenshots outline these steps for getting the code:

screenshot of first two steps to take to get the embed code for about.me

screenshot of next two steps to take to get the embed code for about.me

My Experience with about.me:

When I first started blogging, I did so on WordPress.com and, in fact, still have my poetry blog there.

Once I knew what widgets were, I started to “decorate” my blog with them, emulating other bloggers and other websites.

Now that I’ve been blogging for a while, however, I have learned that other options for social media buttons exist, and because this site (Wording Well) is a WordPress.org site, self-hosted using Abivia (see the hosting guide for more information), I don’t have the widget enabled on it because I am currently using a widget called SocialFans Counter, which I purchased via a place called Code Canyon. (They have many products to choose from, so you can check them out if you don’t mind spending money.) 😉

I’m a big lover of all things free, so I wouldn’t blame you for opting for the free service from about.me instead! 🙂

I’m also a big lover of all of my readers and fellow bloggers, and when someone asks for help, I tend to listen. This post is proof, as Dale Furse, an indie author, left me a comment. When I visited her site, I noticed that she had no social media buttons anywhere! I then replied to her comment, letting her know that I would write this post to help her and whomever else has no social media buttons but wants them!

Proof that About.me Provides Exposure (another Benefit!)

I get email notifications when people view my page, which I actually updated while creating this post. (You can adjust the settings on about.me to suit your preferences.) I also have been thinking of doing a post about this service for a while, too, and have been saving some of my emails to provide you with proof that one of the benefits of using about.me is exposure to other people.

As you know, exposure to others is important for indie authors (and other professionals, too) and using about.me can help you reach new audiences!

screenshot of my gmail about.me notifications

Other Benefits: Using the Paid Version

I cannot personally speak to the benefits of having a premium about.me account because mine is free. However, you can upgrade to a paid account and, apparently a new service is coming where you can also pay for promotion of your page if you want even more exposure online. There are a few other promotional tips that they offer you that you can use in the meantime, like adding a link to your email signature and a link to your about.me page to your other social media profiles.

I try to maintain a steady image and include all of my links in all of my profiles. On my Google+ page, for example, you can see the same links that are found on my about.me page. Branding yourself online takes time, but is ultimately worth it.

So, what I would like to know is this: Are you going to join about.me today? I sure hope so!!! 🙂

Or do you already use it? If you do, do you have a paid account or a free one?

Share your thoughts and experiences with it and about it in the comments!

Benefits of using about.me + how to get FREE social media buttons for your blog

Click to tweet