Sharon Hurley Hall Expert Guru

Sharon Hurley Hall is a freelance writer, editor and lecturer who has worked in writing and journalism for 20 years. She now happily combines her writing career with life as a work at home mother. Sharon blogs on freelance writing at Get Paid To Write and has recently published an ebook entitled SEO Tricks. Her website is doublehdesign.com. Sharon specializes in writing about writing, but she has also written on parenting, education, youth work, web development, business, finance and the metals industry and has reviewed books, films and software. She has written informational articles, sales and marketing copy, blogs, ebooks, children's stories, short stories and poetry and has designed books and magazines. Sharon is a nomad who has lived in England, France and the Caribbean. She holds an MA in Media and Culture and an MA in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education.

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Channel Experience

 Travel/Cities
 Education/Training
 Internet/Web

Career Experience

 Web Writer
 Journalist
 Editor

Project Experience

 Articles
 Book
 Press Releases
 Newsletters

Industry Experience

 Magazines
 Publishing
 Educational

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Free Self Publishing Promotion

Article marketing is an excellent way of promoting a self published book for free. It consists of writing short articles (400-500 words) and uploading them to an article directory such as EzineArticles.com or GoArticles.com. Each article has a resource box at the end, where writers can put links to the resources they want to promote. A good tip is to use the title of the book or the relevant keywords as a link that takes readers to the sales page for the book.

ISBNs Turn 13

International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) are due to change from 10 to 13 digits in 2007. Some publishers have already started using the new system. The expansion of self-publishing and ebook publishing means that there is little capacity left in the 10 digit numbering system. Although the 10 digit system theoretically allows one billion different numbers, the actual possibilities are limited because of the way the ISBNs are divided into group identifier, publisher identifier, title identifier and check digit. The new 13 digit ISBN will also make book numbering compatible with the 13 digit European Article Numbering (EAN) system. This is useful so that books can easily be sold from non-traditional outlets, such as supermarkets and shops. Existing 10 digit ISBNs will automatically be converted by having a 3 digit prefix.

Social Book Promotion

The Internet has many new features that can be used for self-promotion. One of these is social bookmarking. This is like putting bookmarks or favorites online, where they can be shared with others. A key aspect of this is tagging, which means assigning keywords to the bookmarks. Each bookmark can have several keywords. This would work well for the sales page of a self published book. Social bookmarking attracts huge amounts of traffic to tagged websites, so it is an excellent way to get a buzz going about a new self published book.

How To Use ISBNs

International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) are assigned to books and ebooks. They are used by three main groups: publishing houses, book traders and libraries. All of the groups use ISBNs for ordering, stock control and any accounting that needs to be done. In addition, they use ISBNs for other purposes:
- Publishing houses use ISBNs to monitor sales date and manage rights and royalties
- Book traders use ISBNs for sales, bibliographic searches and books in print directories
- Libraries use ISBNs for information retrieval, inter-library loans, loans, cataloguing and maintaining a national bibliography.

Does Book Size Matter?

Paperback book sizes vary slightly, depending on where they are printed. In North America mass market paperbacks are 4 1/4 x 7 inches while trade paperbacks are 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches. In other parts of the world, paperback books are either A format (6 7/8 x 4 1/4 inches), B format (8 x 5 1/4 inches) or C format ( 8 3/4 x 5 5/8 inches).

ISBNs Abroad

There are more than 160 countries and territories that belong to the International Standard Book Numbering (ISBN) scheme. To find the agency that is responsible for issuing an ISBN in your country or region, visit the international ISBN website (www.isbn-international.org). This has a list of all the agencies for countries, regions and language groups. Many self publishers' websites have links to the relevant ISBN agency within a particular country. This is a good place to start when looking for an ISBN for your self-published ebook.

The Long Game

Ebooks have become an important way of self-publishing, because they are cheap to produce and can be delivered easily. Ebooks vary in length depending on the publishers' requirements and the type of ebook. Most ebooks have about 250 words per page. Short non-fiction ebooks might be as little as 24 pages (6000 words), while longer ebooks are often between 10,000 and 20,000 words. The best approach to deciding the length for an ebook is to read publishers' or self publishers' guidelines to see what length they recommend for particular types of ebooks.

Get Hold Of A Ghost

People who have a story to tell but don't feel confident about writing it themselves can hire a ghostwriter to write it for them. This is often done for celebrity biographies. A ghostwriter can use a number of methods to get the story, including:
- Interviewing the people who are telling the story.
- Getting people to put their story on tape.
- Doing additional research if required.
Ghostwriters will turn this information into a book. They usually supply the book in instalments and will expect to be paid for each segment they deliver. Some ghostwriters also provide help with getting the book self-published or published.

Self Publishing With Amazon

As long as a book or ebook has an ISBN it can be listed on Amazon. The online retailer has a number of programs to choose from. For people who are still looking for a publisher, Amazon provides self publishing services through Booksurge. Booksurge includes manuscript development services, marketing and publishing. Publishing through Booksurge makes it easy to sell your self-published book through Amazon and other large online retailers.

Do You Copy?

Ghostwriting is usually done as 'work for hire'. That means that the ghostwriter signs a contract to supply writing services to a buyer. The buyer owns the copyright and the buyer's name will usually appear as the author of the book. The buyer will also receive all royalties from the book. Some people share the credit with ghostwriters. In those cases, the author's name would appear as follows: [buyer's name] with [ghostwriter's name] or [buyer's name] as told to [ghostwriter's name]. When credit is shared, ghostwriters will also share the copyright and will receive some royalties for the book.