Five years ago I was a professional speaker in desperate need of my own book. After each performance, members of my audience would come up to me and ask if I had a book or tape for sale. The need was obvious. The market existed. All I had to do was write a book and bring it to my audience. This is how my first book was born.

I wrote non-stop for two months and finally had him write and illustrate with my own original cartoons. The question now facing me was who would be chosen from thousands of publishers to bring my masterpiece to the eagerly waiting crowds. After many submissions to numerous publishers and many rejection slips, I finally found one who agreed to publish my book. The problem was that they couldn’t do it for a year and a half. I would receive 20% of the retail cost of each copy sold and would have to do most of the promotion myself.

This arrangement was simply not satisfactory. I needed the book as soon as possible and wanted to receive more than 20% of each copy sold. That’s when I decided to enter the world of self-publishing and started Lifeline Publications.

Five hundred copies of were printed as proof and I sold them all during the year as “back of the room” items at my speeches and seminars. Since I wasn’t on the road talking 365 days a year, I wanted to have my book available for purchase seven days a week, whether I was speaking or not. I asked my webmaster to create a store for me and connect it to my talking website. i was in business

With well-chosen and well-directed online and offline advertising, I began to receive orders in my mailbox and by email. As sales increased, so did the number of items posted in my store. I currently have a total of nine information products, manuals, books, tapes, and special reports available for purchase.

In my first year as a publishing mogul, I sold 300 copies of my products online alone and another 100 offline. Add these sales to those of my talks and you can see that I was working as a self-publisher. Orders seem to increase in number every month.

Writers are no longer dependent on the acceptance and approval of editors and publishers. Using the Internet, as well as offline classified ads in popular magazines, you can take your writing directly to a wide and eager market. People are always looking for “how to” information. In fact, the most searched items on the Internet are information products. So if you research people’s needs, wants, and interests, then write to satisfy them, you’re going to sell effectively.

Self-publishing is simple and profitable, especially if you print on demand. You do not print a copy of your product until you receive an order for that product. By doing this, you avoid the cost of having 500 copies printed on top of having to find storage space in your already crowded basement.

If you have the typo and have received enough rejection slips to paper a bedroom, try posting it yourself. When the first order arrives, you’ll feel a great deal of satisfaction and a surge of self-confidence that will inevitably translate into more sales. You’ll be on your way to conquering the world of desktop publishing. GOOD LUCK!