For the next 3 months “Small Business Rocket Fuel: Marketing Tools to Boost Revenue” will be available via KDP Select for borrowing for Amazon Prime members. This is a great way to try out the series and see how much it can benefit your small business, regardless of whether you’re a writer, consultant or other small business owner.

During this time period, the book will not be available on Barnes and Noble due to restrictions set by Amazon.

Yes, the e-book has evolved from a mere pest underfoot or perhaps a curious novelty into a giant in only a few years.

In doing so, it has upset the entire apple cart that is the publishing industry. Authors can now publish and manage their own books and communicate more directly with readers. Even better, e-books are finally starting to wake up to their potential.

From the start, I envisioned a whole new world for e-books that would make them far different from paper books. With the power of electronics’ magic, e-books can become entertainment powerhouses melding many forms in one (images, video, audio, and so much more.) With all these exciting visions dancing in my head, it was somewhat of a let down to find that even inserting images into a Kindle e-book was challenging. At the time I published, the colorful photos I’d taken were only viewable in black and white. Now they are in full color (thanks, Kindle Fire!).

My hope for 2012 is that it becomes feasible for me to do even more than put some photos and web links in my books (without spending a fortune and thus driving up the price for readers).

While e-books have huge potential, challenges have grown as the number of authors has rapidly expanded. It has become much harder to identify quality writing from experienced and knowledgeable authors. On Kindle forums, I see readers complaining about this challenge. Authors must work even harder to demonstrate their skills and show readers why their books are worth the time to read.

Despite the challenges, it has been exciting riding the rising surge of a wave of change in publishing. In 2012, publishing promises to continue the fireworks show. Every author will need to navigate a world changing by the minute. I will be right there with my fellow authors, trying to decide what is best for my books in a shifting world.

Here’s a link to 2012 predicitions for publishing:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2011/ten-bold-predictions-for-book-publishing-in-2012/

No matter how crazy the economy gets, the things that can’t be taken away are aspects of your core personality. Creativity is one of these. Creativity is resilient, but there are still ways to feed it and grow it. One of these is through new and interesting experiences. These experiences can be used to build stories and spark new ideas.

My MBA program has been a tremendous idea sparker. As I look back on what I’ve learned over the past year plus, it’s been life-changing in many ways. It’s hard to believe that the end is growing ever closer.

Besides taking classes, new experiences can be gained through travel and meeting new people even at local conferences.

The new economy has given many of us a new perspective. Life isn’t all about what you can buy, but about what you can be.

In keeping with this philosophy, I’m hard at work on the next book in the “Small Business Rocket Fuel” series as well as finishing up novel 3 (really novel 4 except it jumped ahead and demanded to be worked on).

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Take a look at this interesting article on how experiences can benefit you more than be part of the “buy culture”.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/americans-rethinking-prosperity-162216815.html

As promised, Amazon has now made Kindle Books available in libraries. This means you can now read “Small Business Rocket Fuel: Marketing Tools to Boost Revenue” at your local library. I know my library has Kindles that you can borrow as well so you can get the whole package there. If your library doesn’t have my book, be sure to ask if they can get a copy.

Happy Reading!

PS: Here’s the link to Amazon’s announcement:

http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle/ref=cm_cd_dp_rft_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx2DJ89JW5QORC8

I have been wondering how to sign books for my readers since my new book (Small Business Rocket Fuel: Marketing Tools to Boost Revenue) is currently available as a e-book only. To my surprise I found two companies have recently been started to allow authors to sign e-books for their readers. The first is Authography and the second is Kindlegraph. Authography has no pricing information on it’s web site but seems to be focusing on deals with publishers. Kindlegraph is free, but requires authors to allow Kindlegraph access to their Twitter accounts including reading their tweets and monitoring who they follow. This seems a bit “big-brotherish” to me. I got to thinking how could authors just sign on their own like they used to do with paper books.

How to get your Autograph: I came up with a solution that allows the communication to be solely between my readers and myself. Any one who has purchased my book (Small Business Rocket Fuel) can e-mail me using the address shown in the “About the Author” section. (You can find it easily by clicking on the link in the Table of Contents at the beginning of the book). After I receive your e-mail requesting an autograph, I will create a personalized page for you digitally signed by me. Your page may contain a short poem, digital images, colors and various design elements along with my autograph. I will then e-mail you the page to whatever e-mail address you provide.

All it takes to create these digital signatures is MS Word, Adobe Writer and some imagination. Shhh, don’t tell anyone else or they may decide to skip Kindlegraph and Authography too.

On Thursday (July 28), all day long, come to Romance University to learn how to boost revenue for your writing business. I’ll be there giving free advice on ways writers can develop and use a business mindset.

If you’ve never visited Romance University, I recommend you stop by (link below) any time. This is a robust site filled with writing craft, business advice and just fun writer’s life discussions. The amazing thing is that the ladies who run this site don’t charge anything for it. It’s easy to take free for granted on the Internet. But if you look around free and quality aren’t that easy to find nowadays even on the Internet.

To thank and celebrate everyone who joins me at Romance University (plus my blog readers) I’ve timed my summer sale to correspond with my appearance on RU. My new book, “Small Business Rocket Fuel: Marketing Tools to Boost Revenue”, is now $6.99 discounted from the regular price of $8.99. That’s a discount of 33%! The book is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble under the e-books, business books section (links below).

Although Amazon and Barnes and Noble don’t have a mechanism that allows me to show the sale end date (or the regular price), I’m letting you all in on the secret that the sale will end when real summer does- that is when school starts, the sale ends. On September 1, the price will rise again to the regular price of $8.99.

Happy Summer!

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Business-Rocket-Fuel-ebook/dp/B005AXY472/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1310220277&sr=1-1

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/small-business-rocket-fuel-candice-hughes/1104197103?ean=2940012843357&itm=1&usri=candice%2bhughes

http://romanceuniversity.org

In New England, we’ve passed from inferno hot back to pleasantly cool and grey. I admit it was hard to think in the heat sometimes even with the air conditioning on. So nice to be past that. Despite the weather had some good writing days this month on my thriller #4 manuscript. Starting to see the “light at the end of the tunnel”. It’s always hard to write middles. But I love writing endings! That’s what I’m into now.

Also not forgetting the Small Business Rocket Fuel series. This is such a great series and there are so many more ideas to explore. So exciting to be contemplating a blank slate of a new project.

Hard to believe we’re moving into the final stretch of summer…

A writer colleague asked me this question yesterday. Immediately I thought, “Wow! Great question.”

Small Business Rocket Fuel: Marketing Tools to Boost Revenue started life as a training lecture for medical writers and was presented at the American Medical Writers Association a few years ago. This year as the economy dragged on negatively affecting many small businesses, I thought why not revisit this topic and expand it so more types of small businesses can benefit? So I started setting aside time from working and studying for my MBA to expand and revise the talk, adding more images, more worksheets, more topics, turning it from a lecture into a book.

But that story just tells you about the origins of my book. What I believe writers gain from my book and what makes it different from any other book available is its focus writing as a small business. My book doesn’t just tell you how to sell one book (there are plenty of books that do that), it gives you an entire framework for how to boost revenues for your entire writing business. By looking at your business one book at a time, you may short change your overall business. Too often I see writers struggling (even if they actually sell a lot of books) because they aren’t viewing writing as a business. Truly successful writers take writing as a serious business. I use JK Rowling as an example. She’s leveraged her books into films, toys, video games and more. She retained e-book rights and set up a whole interactive web site to promote her books. For her, writing is a lucrative business. You don’t get to that point overnight. You get there by taking the right steps at the right time and viewing your writing as a long term business.

What I bring to the table with my book is having both the MBA/business’ plus the writer’s mindsets. You may find other books out there that tell you how to sell books, but you won’t find other books that tell you how to make money from marketing them.

All those quiet months when it seemed like nothing was happening here in freezing hot New England…were actually feverish months of intense work that have finally come to fruition.

My first book on Amazon is now available: Small Business Rocket Fuel: Marketing Tools to Boost Revenue. (link below for Kindle- No Kindle? Try Kindle PC and Kindle iPad app too). I have often seen writers, consultants and other small business owners struggling to get their work noticed and open up the tap of revenue that will keep them in business. Why should writers know how to market? Their skills lie in storytelling, which is what they do best. Only a few eccentric writers like myself have this aberrant affinity for business and marketing (and it brings us many sideways glances and odd looks because everyone knows writing is left brain and business is right brain- isn’t it? It’s almost like Frankenstein’s monster to do a mash-up of the two.) The book will be available soon for the Nook on Barnes and Noble as well.

But, being able to market your work is critical to your success. And it can be fun! Really!

To show you how much fun I have, take a look at my free (funny) You-Tube video:

http://youtu.be/L0SdAWmekds

Then if you want to get some great tips on marketing try my new book:

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Business-Rocket-Fuel-ebook/dp/B005AXY472/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1310220277&sr=1-1

Comments on so let me know what you think!