Get More Clients Online

A Table of Contents is Born

I am pleased to report that I finished the table of contents for my upcoming book, Get More Clients Online:  How to Create Internet Marketing Sizzle for Solo Entrepreneurs.  Now that I know how many chapters or portion of chapters I have left to write, and it feels overwhelming, to some degree, I'll admit.  It makes me tired just to think about it..LOL.  However, I know that from now through the end of the year I'll need to make all of my writing count, so every article that I'll write for this newsletter will be included in some fashion in the book.

Currently I'm seeking 10 successful online business owners to profile in the book. My selection criteria include:

1.  You must own a service business
2.  You must get the majority of your clients from your online marketing efforts.
3.  Your online business must be the major source of your income. If you're employed either part-time or full-time elsewhere, you don't qualify.
4.  Your website must have a Google Page Rank of at least 4 and an Alexa ranking under 900,000.
6.  You must be willing to spend 30-60 minutes completing an interview questionnaire and/or being interviewed by me.

I'd like to hear from a variety of service business owners, like professional coaches, consultants, virtual assistants, website designers, professional organizers, personal chefs, professional speakers, etc.  I will accept only one business to feature per industry.

If you'd like to be considered, drop me an email and tell me about yourself and your business and how you've successfully grown your business online.

Critique on my First Draft

I'm so excited -- I had my first meeting yesterday with Jan King of e-Women Publishing Network, about my upcoming book, Get More Clients Online:  Creating Internet Marketing Sizzle for Solo Entrpreneurs.  She offered me some great feedback about how to fill some gaps in my content, and accurately called me on my perfectionist tendencies (in other words, working on the book forever and never releasing it because it's not perfect <g>). 

We also brainstormed some ideas on how to get the chapters finished more quickly (I need to set a deadline for electronically publishing a series of special reports that would actually serve as chapters of the book), as well as how to prevent a printed book with lots of web site links from becoming quickly outdated and incorrect (create a special buyer-only section of the web site with the most up-to-date online info referenced in the book).

She also advised me to do a longer introduction to the book's content, and write a broader overview about how people would know that they needed this information. So, if you're an online business "newbie", you can help!  Post the most burning questions you have about internet marketing or running an online business to AskDonnaGunter.com.  Not only will I answer your questions in the blog, your questions will also help me write the introduction to my book.

The Ball is Rolling Now..:)

Well, I feel I've experienced a major achievement this afternoon.  I completed my author questionnaire for eWomen Publishing Network and sent Jan my initial brain dump about my book.  Yipee!

I wrote an article several weeks ago on creating an Internet marketing plan that seemed to serve as a great outline for the book.  So, today I finished going through my article collection and copied and pasted them into appropriate chapters and ended up with 11 chapters and 97 pages!

Granted, there's still a great deal of material to be written, and what I have included in my first draft needs some severe editing, but I finally feel I'm on my way!

Self-Publishing Resources

I'm hoping to chronicle my self-publishing adventures here on the blog each week.

If you're thinking about self-publishing, here are a couple of resources to get you started:

1.  eWomenPublishingNetwork -- has a great coaching program that will help you evaluate your book's potential, design, layout, and publishing.  They have a vast array of resources, from editors to proofreaders to indexers to cover designers and typesetters to help you make your book a reality.

2.  The Self-Publishing Manual by Dan Poynter.  The classic book on self-publishing, now in its 15th edition.  Dan also has tons of great resources on his site and a wonderful free email newsletter, www.poynterpublishing.com.

3.  The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing by Marilyn and Tom Ross.  This is another comprehensive classic, and Marilyn and Tom went on to found the Small Publisher's Association of North America (more info about this association is below).

4.  1001 Ways to Market Your Books by John Kremer.  Hey, it's never too early to begin thinking about marketing your book!  I love the ideas that John sets forth in this book, and I've applied many of them to other types of products and services, so it's a great resource to have, even if you're not publishing a book!  John also publishes an information-packed email newsletter, found on his website, http://www.bookmarket.com

5.  Small Publisher's Association of North America:  a comprehensive organization with great resources and advices for the small publisher (that's YOU, FYI, if you're publishing your own book <g>)

6.  Discussion list for self-publishers: (Thanks to reader Char Diehm, who specializes in book and cover designs and editing at Illuminated Designs, http://illuminatedesigns.com, for this info)

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Self-Publishing/

http://noodlefactory.typepad.com/publishl/