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Archive for the ‘Publishing’ Category

Writing e-books can be a more cost effective means to promote your work while being environmentally friendly in the process. If you are meaning to make a name for yourself as a writer, then perhaps writing e-books is something you might like to try.

If you have had no luck in the pieces you have been sending to publishers in the past, you can keep trying other publishers until one of them notices your talent and decides to publish you. However, in the meantime, you can start writing e-books and distributing them online. This way, you will be able to reach your audience even if you have not gotten your book to the printers yet. True enough, the market for e-books is not as significant as the readers for traditional paperback and hardbound books.

However, writing e-books will give you the chance to gather constructive criticism from e-book readers and this in turn will help you polish your work and may help you eventually get the attention you deserve from publishers. This means savings on your part because having to print your book yourself can be quite expensive. If you write and distribute e-books instead, it will barely cost you anything.

Plus, it costs the environment less because you won’t be cutting down trees to write e-books. Cutting down trees from uncertified forests as we know contributes to our already growing problem with Climate Change. The carbon dioxide accumulated by trees in its lifetime is released back into the atmosphere at the event of their death.

What’s more is that, writing e-books is easy. You do not have to be a super technical person to do it. You can just write your book in a normal program like Microsoft Word and save it as a PDF file, which most e-book reader programs will readily open. Once you are set with writing e-books, you can join e-book forums and distribute your work there while communicating with your possible readers there for comments and such.

Before anything else though, after writing e-books and before distributing them to online business, do take the time to protect your intellectual property rights by registering your work in the relevant government agencies. This will take some time, effort and money for fees, but this step in the process is quite important. After all, once your e-book is distributed online, there will be nothing to stop unscrupulous individuals to plagiarize your work.

Imagine this: you finally see your work published on the shelves, selling like hotcakes but the one getting the fame and glory is someone else who has stolen your work for his or her own. So taking the time to get your work registered is a necessary step to ensure that you continue writing e-books successfully.

Proper risk management is an essential foundation of becoming successful. If you follow these simple steps needed for writing e-books then chances are you might be able to begin to establish yourself as a writer. You may not have the large base that traditional paperback books enjoy, but you have to start somewhere.

Also, you just never know who will be able to read your work. The world wide web is vast and who knows-maybe someone important or beneficial to your success as a writer will come across your work and give you the break that you need.

The question of whether or not MySpace can be used to promote a business is certainly debatable. MySpace is intended to be a non-commercial website by nature but there is a different between blatant commercialization and mentioning a product or service you offer and providing a link as a useful resource to visitors of your website. This article will take a look at the opportunities to promote a business on MySpace by providing information on determining whether or not your method of business promotion is permitted on MySpace and information on how to promote your business without being accused of spamming MySpace.

Review the Terms of Service Carefully

The terms of service provided by MySpace can provide the greatest insight into whether or not there are ways to promote authors business through MySpace. Members of MySpace are asked to review the terms of service before becoming a member. Each member should carefully read through this entire agreement to come to a better understanding of which types of activities are allowed on MySpace as well as which types of activities are prohibited.

One of the stipulations of the MySpace reads as follows, “Non-commercial Use by Members. The MySpace Services are for the personal use of Members only and may not be used in connection with any commercial endeavors except those that are specifically endorsed or approved by MySpace.com. Illegal and/or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services, including collecting usernames and/or email addresses of Members by electronic or other means for the purpose of sending unsolicited email or unauthorized framing of or linking to the MySpace Website is prohibited. Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, and other forms of solicitation may be removed from Member profiles without notice and may result in termination of Membership privileges. Appropriate legal action will be taken for any illegal or unauthorized use of the MySpace Services.”

This section of the terms of service stipulates that MySpace is created for non-commercial use unless Myspace.com has approved the use of a member’s website for commercial purposes. Therefore care should be taken when designing a MySpace website to ensure the website will not be deemed to be a commercial website by MySpace administrators.

When In Doubt, Ask Questions

Those who are unsure of whether or not their MySpace website, as they have designed it, will be considered a commercial website should consult with MySpace administrators. This step is not necessary unless the member is concerned their content will be perceived as being commercial. Reviewing the terms of use agreement can provide a great deal of information but some users may still be concerned with the possibility that their website will be penalized if the administrators deem it to be commercial in nature.

Contacting MySpace is a fairly simple process. Members can use the, “Contact MySpace” link from the MySpace.com homepage. The contact page enables members to select a subject and a subtopic and submit this information. Once this is done MySpace provides some preliminary information which may be relevant. If this information is not useful to the member they can email a detailed request to MySpace.

Avoid Spamming at All Costs

If authors determine there is an opportunity for authors to promote your business through MySpace, care should be taken to ensure the promotion does not cross the line into spam. Spamming is taken very seriously by the MySpace administrators and it may result in links or content being deleted or the privileges of membership may be revoked when a member is found to be guilty of spamming.

Links to your ecommerce website integrated into your MySpace website isn’t considered spamming. Depending on how it is used it may not even be considered advertising, and therefore prohibited, by MySpace administrators. However, visiting other MySpace websites and placing a link to your ecommerce website on each website you visit would be considered spam. These individuals may or may not be interested in the website authors provide but even if they are interested sending these links to numerous websites unsolicited is often considered to be spam.