What do you want to write? Why not write an ebook? Ebooks, sold from one- or twopage websites, has been a lucrative business for quite a few people and who knows? Perhaps it is your turn?
"How to write and publish your own OUTRAGEOUSLY Profitable eBook in as little as 7 days" is a no-nonsense guide to the essentials - finding out what to write about, how to kickstart the process, how to market your masterpiece and how to sell it - automatically.
I have read 10-20 books on writing. This is the most concise, lucid, thorough book I have read yet. I am not writing an ebook myself, though. I am writing a fiction novel (in Norwegian, so most of you won't be able to read it if it ever is published - if it doesn't become a huge success, that is! :). With all the wheeling and dealing at my work, I felt like writing something for the pure pleasure of creating (and the tool below lets me concentrate on creating, not technology!).
That doesn't mean that 7 day ebook didn't help! No wonder considering the authors. Joe Vitale is the bestselling author of Hypnotic Writing, Advanced Hypnotic Writing, and Spiritual Marketing. Joe Edwards wrote Selling Your Home Alone and The TEN Dirty Little Secrets of Mortgage Financing - and both of them are making a very nice income.
Visit their website; see if it doesn't capture you (like it did me). They have a special offer on the book: only $30, including some nice bonuses.
Jump over to
http://www.smartsoftware.org/7day/ this moment - if only to enjoy the way these two authors use words to entice!
But you need a good tool to write with!
Quite often I come across simple software - easy to install, to use or to tweak. Less often I come across brilliant software, with brilliant execution, features or ideas. Simple, brilliant software is even rarer. The Journal is one such creature.
For some time, I've had a book in my head. I've been building the characters, setting up scenes and creating images and dialogues.
I have started on books before. I always hit a point where I get more captivated with perfecting the previous words, paragraphs and pages than I am with creating new words.
Sure, I know; writing teachers say Write without editing. Leave it all for the rewrite. Still your inner critic. Well, I am not capable of that - when I scroll down the Word-document, I spot flaws, errors and logical mistakes - and I must fix them. OCD, I guess.
Then I came across the Journal (TJ). At 3 Mb, it is a fast download, and it is something I can guarantee will stick in my Programs-folder like jam-spots to a three year olds sweater.
Once installed, you are asked to define a user. A nice feature; you can have more than one user and it allows you to password protect your inner thoughts.
What shows up once this is done looks like a simplified version of Microsoft Word. No clutter and no unnecessary features, though, only the basics such as different fonts/boldface/italics and so on. A feature not found in Word is the calendar. On the left side of the display you see the days of the month, with today marked in bold. As you type, the built-in spellchecker checks your spelling.
The genius of TJ shows up when you start it the next day. You start on a new, blank page - you can still access what you wrote yesterday, but it is in read-only mode (you can edit if you wish).
To me, this allows for a much more natural writing process - it flows, since I only glance through yesterday's entry before I start writing.
In addition to the journal-feature, you have a notebook which stays static. I use this for noting down things I must research, ideas on situations and such.
To give you an impression of how different people use TJ, I have taken the liberty of copying some testimonials from its webpage:
"I'm an independent programmer, and I've used The Journal for almost three years now to keep up with my projects on a day-by-day basis. My clients are consistently amazed when I can quickly tell them the exact date we made a particular decision or software change, and all the factors we were considering at the time. The Journal has greatly increased my professional effectiveness and is second-to-none!" --Bill D. Pirkle
"I am a note-taker by profession (University teacher and literary critic) as well as compulsion, and routinely use several free-form databases in order to keep track of references, quotations, and (when they come) ideas. These programs are very useful for their purpose, but do not encourage one to enter random thoughts or log personal and domestic events on a daily basis. The Journal enables one to do just that, and you are to be congratulated for having made the program so straightforward, transparent, and at the same time elegant in its operation. It is the kind of program that nobody knows they need until they've tried it, whereupon it becomes indispensable." --David Lucking
As you can see, TJ can be used in various ways. The fact that the programmer, David Michael, has added easy to use backup-features, a thesaurus and extensive printing-options makes this a true winner.
You can download a 45 days trial of the Journal at
http://www.davidrm.com hejournal/ . I am certain that you will become just as addicted to it as I am, and that you will be happy to fork over $40 once the trial is over.
About the Author
Haakon is the editor of SmartWare, a Mensa International Journal-column. He reviews books, software, new-age-stuff, brainwave-machines, music that changes emotions, creativity boosters and marketing material. Visit at
http://www.smartsoftware.org
