This presentation explains how consultants can leverage ebooks to grow their consulting businesses. Consultants will learn how to: Distribute and sell an ebook; package their expertise and knowledge into a scalable, sellable ebook product; leverage ebooks to attract consulting clients and drive scalable revenue; and learn best practices of the most commercially successful ebook authors. Presented by Mark Coker of Smashwords at the January 27 2012 meeting of the Bay Area Consultants Network in San Rafael, CA.

2. My Backstory

3. Ever since I can remember, I dreamed of writing a book

4. After 15 years running an award-winning Silicon Valley PR firm, I was ready

5. I’d share my PR secrets My book would help everyone harness the powerful magic of PR

6. Fate had other plans

7. I wrote a novel about daytime television soap operas. Yes, soap operas (!!)

12. Indie ebooks published at Smashwords 140 6,000 28,800 92,000 +

13. How’s the ebook market doing?

14. Ebooks as a percentage of US trade market Source: Association of American Publishers, publishers.org

16. Technology is colliding with the traditional book publishing industry

17. ooh, pretty! Big Publishers Not Equipped to Deal with Change

18. UNTIL RECENTLY, BIG PUBLISHERS HAD MONOPOLISTIC CONTROL OVER THE PRINTING PRESS AND DISTRIBUTION TO BOOKSTORES

19. IT WAS A SWEET RACKET Readers wanted books Publishers controlled the supply $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $

22. BUT THEN THE INTERNET HAPPENED

27. Q: What do ebooks and consultants have in common?

28. A: Both are mediums for knowledge transfer

29. … though ebooks are easier to clone than consultants

32. How to Publish and Distribute an Ebook

35. Ebook Formatting

36. Formatting is the process of preparing your book for conversion to an ebook

37. Formatting for Smashwords Over 140,000 Downloads!

39. E-reading Devices

41. Create a professional ebook cover image

43. Don’t be Lazy

44. Don’t be Dim Le Peuple de L’Etat de New York Contre Dominique Strauss-Khan

45. Connect with your target audience The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg

46. Most of us design terrible covers

47. So I Hired a Pro for $45.00 Send email to: [email_address] for “Mark’s List”

48. Conversion

49. Conversion = Turning your formatted manuscript into an ebook file readable on multiple ebook reading devices

51. ISBN

54. Copyright

56. How to Reach Readers

57. Distribute to as many retailers as possible

58. Ebook retailers want indie ebooks Mobile apps

60. Architect for Virality

62. The Viral Dream First reader More Readers

63. Viral Decay, The Reality First reader Readers

64. Negative Virality First reader This book sucks!!!! = Last reader

67. Maximize discoverability

70. The Plan Forward

71. You are the future of book publishing

72. You are your own gatekeeper

73. You have something to share with the world

74. YOU decide when your manuscript graduates to PUBLISHED BOOK

75. Think Globally

76. Ebooks help you transcend geography

77. The Market for Your Smarts Outside the US will soon Dwarf the US Market Almost 50% of Smashwords Apple iBookstore Sales are Outside the US

80. Thank you for listening! Q&A Connect: Web: www.smashwords.com Blog: blog.smashwords.com Twitter: @markcoker LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/markcoker HuffPo: huffingtonpost.com/mark-coker Email: first initial second initial at smashwords.com