Because of this, those writers and self-publishers looking to outsource this part of the process should make a point of getting to know what they’re actually paying for. There is a whole world of difference between ebook “conversion” and ebook “formatting”.

What “conversion” means is that someone is going to feed your Word doc into a bit of software which will grind it up and spit it out as a “converted” manuscript. You will then have to upload it to your publisher of choice and hope that the book that comes out looks and reads as you would want it to. It probably won’t! Why? Because it hasn’t been “formatted”.

Proper ebook “formatting” involves a thorough knowledge of html and css. As a very basic guide, html governs the elements of the page, css governs how those elements will look, where they should be on the page and how much space is in and around them. This is what website designers work with all day, every day – and I’ve been designing websites since 1998.

The formatter’s art is in knowing what works and what’s desired by the various ereaders, then making sure that these parameters are met.

Then, when it’s published, your book will look and read exactly as you envisaged. It will look like a book, not a web page. (ie: proper first-line indentation and paragraph spacing; typographer (curly) quotes rather than straight; em or en dashes instead of hyphens, etc.).

Want want to know more about my formatting services? Check out my dedicated website ePub-it! to see what I can do for you.

Got any questions? I’d love to help you, just leave your comment below.

They’re approximately 6500 words each and you can see a synopsis of each one on my short stories page.

I’m currently working on the third one and there are two, possibly three, more to come after that.

Then I will be combining them all into a collection which will be for sale on Amazon Kindle, and once that’s done there’ll be a paperback version as well. Phew!

If you would like to keep up with future releases, please subscribe to the newsletter over there on the right, or the RSS feed up above it.

There’ll be some more free stuff to come for all subscribers but at the moment I’m working flat out on the stories so you’ll just have to trust me on this. Have I ever lied to you?

I know, I know, but a bit of self-promotion is allowed occasionally, surely? After all, I am a self-published author. Who else is going to do it?

Never use any link inside the content that you can’t control or change later.

You should always use redirect links from your own domain when putting any kind of link inside your ebook or publication. Most people will insert their affiliate link for a product or service inside their ebook that they are hoping readers will click on and earn them some cash.

Big mistake!

They can easily become obsolete, unusable and therefore unprofitable.

For example: If your affiliate program owner decided to no longer use Clickbank to handle his affiliate program and went with a different affiliate tracking link, what happens to the thousands of copies of your ebook that are in place with his old affiliate link in there?

Or suppose you are linking to a dating service that goes out of business? What then? I’ll tell you what then:

Your links are toast!

They are worthless to you.

Instead, you want to link to a page at your site that refreshes and redirects the visitor to your assigned affiliate link. Something like this: http://www.yourdomain.com/offer.html

This enables you to change the link anytime you want to in the future, you remain in control regardless of what happens with the products and services that you linked to. With a redirect link set up like this you can easily adjust a landing page, or send the traffic to a new affiliate link, or a different dating service, or to a sales/squeeze page at your site.

Even if you change hosts or servers you still remain in control. It would be impossible to make changes to all of those ebooks already out there. You simply make a two-minute change at your website. You would be amazed at how many dead links there are in the thousands of earlier ebooks still out there that could still be paying their authors a residual income.

The other downside is that you’re going to get plenty of emails from people saying, ‘You’ve got a dead link here, can you give me the correct one?’ It creates a lot of extra work in answering emails and is certainly throwing away potential profit from the countless people who never bother to ask for an updated link.

So be smart, never use any link inside the content that you can’t control. Always use redirect links and your product will be earning for you in years to come.

Have a good one, whatever you’re doing. (Canon G10. Settings? Haven’t got a clue, it’s a point-and-shoot!)

So I did a search for 2012 WordPress themes and found this one. I wanted a theme that utilised up-to-date technologies, like HTML5 and CSS3, but also I just loved the simple and traditional look and feel of this one. What do you think?

There’s a link in the footer if you’d like to see more. Want to know the best bit? It’s free!

Chuck’s brief was simple: “I want you to tell me a story in five sentences. (Yes, a complete story.) No longer than 100 words total.”

Deadly Night-Girl

If you look really hard she still retains a certain glamour, but only on a good day.

In a previous life she had it all; she was an A-lister, she sparkled, turned heads, broke more than a few hearts. Now there are only memories; and needles; and the stale-piss stench of the cubicle.

A liquid jewel pops out of her vein, an HIV ruby pooling at the exit of the thin steel lifeline.

She’s well past caring about how she looks but she covers her arms carefully, in her line of business it makes the punters nervous.

Go to Your Favorite Music Player. Dig out your digital music collection.
Hit SHUFFLE, then “Play.”
Meaning, let a random song come bubbling up out of nothing.
The title to this song is the title to your story.
Use the song for inspiration, too, if you feel so inclined.
Let’s tighten up the word count a little, too –
You only have 500 words this time.   

So I did what he said and got ‘Do you want the truth, or something beautiful?‘ by Paloma Faith. With a title like that I just had to give it a go. So here it is:

The call came in at 1.30am. It’s always urgent, and it’s always me who gets them. Within five minutes I’m on my way.

When I get there it’s a disaster area. Police, fire-fighters and medics are everywhere. I look around for my contact but I don’t see him. The guy in the car looks pretty smashed up. I go to see if I can help but I can’t even get near the poor guy. Still, he’s in good hands so I retire back to the perimeter.

“I suppose you get this all the time, don’t you?” It was my contact.

To be honest, he startled me a bit, not something that usually happens. I greeted him, “Hi Barry, I didn’t see you there, what’s the story here?”

“The car came straight out of a side street and t-boned me. How do you know my name?”

“It’s my job, son. How do you feel?”

“Not good.”

“Do you think you’ll make it?”

“Not so sure that I want to, looking at the state of me.”

“Well it’s your choice at the end of the day.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I obviously didn’t get a fucking choice, did I?” He’s looking angry now.

I try to calm him. “Look Barry, I know it’s not your fault, and you’re a bit upset about things, but try to remain rational, otherwise we’ll get nowhere.”

“Rational! I’ve just had my head stoved in and my pelvis liquidised into a fucking slop by some drunken twat, and you’re telling me to be rational?”

“That I am, Barry, that I am. Because I’m here to give you a choice and you can’t make it while you’re ranting like that. Plus, you don’t have much time.”

“A choice? What choice?”

“You can choose where to go next.”

“What? But I’m standing here next to you. That choice has already been made for me, surely?”

“Not so, Barry, you’re still hanging in there, you’re having what is endearingly known in your world as an out of body experience. I don’t catch them all but you’re lucky, the call came through just in time for this one.”

“You mean I’m dead?”

“Well, sort of, but you still have the choice.”

“There you go again, what fucking choice?”

“Barry, if you swear at me again I’ll leave, then you won’t know the options.”

“Ok, ok, I’m sorry, but it’s fu… sorry, it’s hard for me to get a grasp of what’s going on here.”

“It’s simple, Barry, you’re running out of time fast, but what happens next is up to you. You can come with me or go back into your body.”

“But if I go back I’ll most probably be a cabbage, certainly in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I can’t cope with all that, I’d rather be dead. Help me out here, if I come with you what’s it really like?”

I wish they wouldn’t ask that question, it’s the worst part of my job. I give him my standard response, “Do you want the truth, or something beautiful?”

Hope you liked it. Leave a comment and let me know.

Congratulations! You’re part of a huge movement, the 99% of wannabes who will never make a dime!

You’ll just keep flitting from one ‘money making’ scheme to the next, all the while overdosing on daily emails from all the ‘gurus’ out there trying to bleed you dry with the latest must-have ‘guaranteed-income-for-doing-fuck-all’ crock of gold. (Or is that crock of shit?)   

Take my advice: STOP!

Stop being a sucker. Stop giving your money to people who talk the talk but have never walked the walk. Stop sitting on your arse and thinking the world and its money will come to you – it won’t!

Let me ask you a couple of very simple questions:

1. Do you understand about websites, html, css, SEO and SEM? (If you don’t, how the hell did you think you were ever going to make any money as an ‘Internet Marketer’?)
2. Can you tear yourself away from your computer and go out there in the big wide world and TALK TO PEOPLE? (You remember that, don’t you? Face-to-face social interaction with real human beings!)

There is a well-tried and extremely simple method of earning real money for anyone with a modicum of website/online marketing knowledge.

Want to know what it is?

Get out of your jim-jams, get your shoes on and go visit your local small to medium sized businesses, then start talking to them about their websites and their online marketing strategy.

Chances are you will discover that most of them won’t have one! Or if they do have a website it won’t be working anywhere near as effectively as it should be. Guess what? A good percentage of them will happily pay you to design, redesign or optimise their website for them!

This is not fantasy, my friends, this is fact. I know because I do it! I’ve been doing it for quite a while now, in fact, and it pays the rent – as well as the Ferrari and the Learjet! (Sorry, I lapsed into Internet-Marketing-Guru-Speak there.)

Now I’m not the world’s leading web designer or SEO guru (actually, I probably am, I’m just being humble here), but I know more than enough about these things to be able to make a big difference to the average website. One thing is absolutely certain and that is that I know a damned-sight more than most small business owners.

Small business owners need you!

They are so tied up in running their own businesses that they just don’t have the time, or inclination, to worry about a website. In the beginning they probably paid some agency a fortune to design a pretty site for them that is now just sitting there, lost in the murky mists of Google.

You’ve just got to go right in there and talk to them. Find out what they need and give it to them. Offer your expertise to get their site working properly, and noticed by Google, and they will be more than happy to pay you for the privilege.

Believe me, once you have proved that you can do what you say, and are reliable, you’ll have a client for life. A client you can charge a monthly hosting/webmastering fee. A client who will be open and willing to listen to your next ideas for improvement and optimisation. A client who will be happy to recommend you to his friends – and to anyone else who’ll listen!

Think you can’t do this? If you’re doing it for yourself at the moment to earn a pitiful few dollars with Adsense or affiliate programs, why can’t you do it for someone else? And in the process earn yourself a real income? All you need to do is approach them in the right way.

What’s the right way? Get off your arse and go and talk to these people! They’re out there and they WANT to hear from you. It really is as simple as that.

But then I was on Twitter and I saw a link to the article below on justpaste.it and decided that it said everything I was going to say. Only more so, and from an insider’s point of view!

So I’ll reproduce it verbatim below and just let you draw your own conclusions:   

Britain’s got Talent and the Ronan Parke Connection

“For reasons which will become obvious, I can’t reveal my full identity. But let me just say that, I am an executive with Sony Music UK with many years experience in music mangement. My work involves close liasion with Simon Cowell’s SYCO company (specifically SYCO Music and SYCO TV) and, as a result, I have seen what goes on from the inside and this has left me increasingly uncomfortable about the integrity of Britain’s Got Talent and particularly the workings of SYCO.

It’s long been known that there is a quite a degree of “fixing” in BGT: Daily Mail, Jan 2011. But press reports on “fixing” are only the tip pf the iceberg when it comes to SYCO’s manipulation of, not only the show and the contestants, but also the viewing public and hopefully, in this email, I can shine some light on the smoke and mirrors trickery of SYCO.

Take BGT 2011 for example. Scouts working for SYCO first saw Ronan Parke (the 12 year old singer) some two years ago when he was just 10 and was singing at a birthday party for former Norwich City goal-keeper, Bryan Gunn. Following that, Ronan was privately auditioned by SYCO scouts on two more occasions and, as is usual practice on BGT, he was “invited” to audition for the show as a “preferred” contestant.

At the same time, Ronan and his parents were “required” to enter into a contract with SYCO. Like all SYCO contracts, it is heavily weighted in favour of the label and are notoriously bad, even in the cut-throat world of the music industry. Simon effectively signed Ronan for life and he’s got little or no chance of ever getting out of it…unless Simon decides to terminate.

Recording contracts are legally extremely complex and usually require input and advice from very expensive, specialist contract lawyers. SYCO knows that such legal advice goes well beyond the means of most contestants. As one senior SYCO executive said to me recently. “These people are mugs. They’ll sign away their own mother just to get on tv. It’s a fucking turkey-shoot and then we own their arses!”

As is common for “invited” contestants that SYCO likes and have already signed, Ronan and his parents were provided with a car to drive them to the audition in London. These “invited” contestants don’t have to queue up with everyone else, they don’t go through the preliminary auditions with producers, but perform straight to Simon and the judging panel at a pre- arranged time-slot. And so it was for Ronan back in 2009 when he was just 10.

It was at this initial audition that I first met Ronan and he looked very different back then. He was a skinny, 10 year old lad who, even at that time, was a bit effeminate. His voice needed a bit of working on, but that wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, nerves got the better of Ronan and he was unable to perform. Simon however, had already seen the audition tapes from the scouts and took Ronan into an unused dressing room and got him to sing in there with his mum for support. Clearly Ronan was not going to be part of BGT in 2009 and nothing from this was ever televised.

Ordinarily, you would think that would be the end of things, but with Ronan already signed to SYCO, far from it. This was just the start of a two year grooming and manipulation process to prepare Ronan for stardom.

It’s no big secret that Simon has been looking for an artist who could crack the very lucrative pre-teen market for some time, particularly in the US. If you like, he wanted his own rival to Bieber and, taking a leaf out of how professional football academies develop youngersters to feed their main team, Simon wanted his own singing academy and Ronan was just one of a number of identified youngsters, with whom SYCO intensively works with.

A development package, which included professional singing, dancing and stage-craft tuition was arranged for Ronan and the SYCO machine kicked into gear with the view of Ronan entering BGT 2010. Lots of work had been done with Ronan and his voice was much improved, unfortunately nerves were still a major issue for him and it was decided by SYCO not to enter him into the 2010 series.

At a following senior exec meeting at SYCO it was suggested that Ronan be dropped, but with Simon confident that he could be the kid he had been looking for, it was agreed that Ronan would receive “intensive support and input” to ready him for the 2011 series. Although Ronan’s voice was now stunning, there were other major problems to be dealt with in order to sell him to the public. With respect to Ronan, he was nothing more than a cooky-looking, skinny runt of a kid and this was identified as a major handicap to sales.

It was agreed at a high-level, secret SYCO meeting, that if they were to do anything with Ronan, he needed totally restyling from the toes up. And so with time running out to develop Ronan into the star Simon wanted, SYCO went into overdrive. Ronan was even given speech and elocution training to rid him of his rural Norfolk accent, again in preparation for the potential US market. As for his effeminate and girlishness, this posed a bigger problem and resulted in many highly confidential meetings. At one of these meetings, the unthinkable was raised as a way forward….

Until now Ronan had been encouraged to “boy-up” and it was planned to present Ronan as an everyday skater-boy. But with his girliness still showing through, the image just wasn’t believable. So a decision was taken to encourage and allow Ronan to “release” and enhance his campness . Disgustingly, SYCO planned to sexualise him.

They were well aware of course, that if they sexualised a young girl to look sexually older than she is, all hell would let loose. But with Ronan, as one executive put it, “no one has ever seen a ‘gay’ kid before, it’ll be a novelty.” As for the pre-teen market, it was accepted they wouldn’t care if Ronan appeared gay or not…most probably don’t know what gay is anyway. And so, with a total gay- sexualisation of Ronan secretly planned, SYCO got to work.

I should stress, Ronan’s parents were not aware of any of this and were never consulted about Ronan’s development or management. When I first met Ronan he was a bit effeminate in his ways, but nothing like the camp, girlie-giggling kid you see now on BGT and this is a direct result of SYCO’s styling. Even his clothing worn at the audition and live semi-final were chosen for him by SYCO to match his new image.

SYCO took over everything to do with Ronan. His hairstyle, his clothes, his poise, giving tv interviews, you name it, Ronan was styled within an inch of his life and all on the promise of stardom, just as long as he worked hard and listened to his mentors. As for Ronan’s parents they were constantly reassured that Simon was personally looking after Ronan and “it’s all good”.

And so to BGT 2011. With Ronan ready to be unveiled, SYCO bosses, under instructions from Simon did something not done in previous series of BGT; the winner of BGT 2011 was decided long before the first auditions took place and that winner HAD to be Ronan Parke.

With Ronan now 12, he looked and sounded just as SYCO had planned, but time was running out. Soon Ronan would be going into puberty and his voice would eventually break, so BGT 2011 had to be the vehicle to launch Ronan’s career; another year and as a singer he would probably be beyond any meaningful career and the opportunity will have been missed.

With all this investment in Ronan, the production managers at SYCO TV are ready to deliver Ronan as ordered. Again, I need to stress, Ronan and his parents know nothing of this and have no idea Ronan will win BGT this weekend.

So far in the history of BGT and X-Factor, for that matter, no one has ever won who has not been an “invited or preferred” contestant, and it does sadden me that, all those thousands of people, lining up outside, often in the rain and cold, are basically wasting their time. The producers of BGT are not looking for the talented people, they aready have those.

The reality is that the producers are hunting out oddities, freaks and, I’m ashamed to say, mentally ill people, to act as amusing fillers in the audition shows. They are nothing more than unpaid extras and they don’t even qualify for traveling expenses! It’s quite disgusting and shameful really, how the production team on BGT operate.

People come from all over the country, often at great personal expense, because they think BGT is a talent competition and they stand a chance of realising their dreams. I can tell you from the inside that BGT is no more a “competition”, than I am an astronaut. Nothing is left to chance on BGT, everything is micro-managed, choreographed, manipulated and planned down to the last detail including, the telephone voting.

The ability to manipulate viewers opinion is vital if you are to control telephone voting and indeed get the required result. SYCO see this as essential to the success of the show and are very open about fact; planning and delivering live shows of quality is impossible if it was purely left to the public vote. As Simon said in a meeting once. “The public NEED to be told who to vote for.” Everything on BGT is geared towards telling you who you should for, particularly on the production side. It’s an art really, which Simon has honed to perfection and SYCO are now world leaders at.

The micro-management of Ronan’s audition performance was incredible. I was really quite shocked at his new image. From a starting point of wanting Ronan to look cute for the pre-teen market, SYCO had totally gayed him up in the process. Ronan’s not a 16 year old expressing his sexualty for the first time, he’s a 12 year old boy.

It was horrible and I was very uncomfortable as to where this was going to end. Ronan, still suffering from nerves, performed his song and received a standing ovation from all three judges…why? Because it was in the script to give Ronan a standing ovation. As for Louis comment. “Ronan Parke. Remember that name. This kid’s gonna be a star!!” – that was actually fed to him from the production gallery and I know the guy who wrote the line.

And when it comes to Ronan’s tears…well, check it out on YouTube or something. You see Ronan crying and wiping away tears. Only you don’t see any actual tears, not even on close-up and on an HD tv. Yep you guessed it, even that was choreographed, right down to the lip-biting!

It was also interesting to see that even before the final credits rolled on Ronan’s audition show, SYCO TV had uploaded the offical video of Ronan onto YouTube. Today, that particular video has been viewed over 2.5 million times and growing. SYCO don’t do that for other contestants, so why Ronan?

The gaying-up Ronan plan slightly backfired on SYCO when lots of negative comments were being posted on YouTube and Twitter about Ronan’s image and the supposed sexuality that represents. Things got so bad on YouTube that the posting of comments had to be suspended. But SYCO learned from this and dressed Ronan more appropriately for his semi-final show; preferring a much more Bieber inspired look to the ‘gay- kid’ image presented in the audition.

In another unusal move for BGT contestants, SYCO created Ronan’s Official Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account. Both these services are managed from within SYCO and they post messages and pictures, not Ronan. This is because they don’t want Ronan posting anything controversial and is standard practice for currrent artists signed to SYCO.

And so this weekend will see Ronan crowned as winner of BGT 2011. Oh and let’s not forget the £100k prize money. It’s unlikely Ronan will see much or any of that. He’s been signed to SYCO for two years now and under the terms of his contract, while SYCO stump-up for costs in advance, this is paid back from future earnings. So he will need to pay for all those lessons, coaches, cars, clothes, styling and management… I wouldn’t be surprised even after winning BGT, if he is not still in debt to SYCO.

As a recording artist Ronan has a relatively short shelf-life. Simon knows he is going to have to hit the ground running to maximise Ronan’s earning potential, particularly if they go ahead with a planned break into the States and the pace is going to be frantic for Ronan.

If you think the music industry is bad in the UK, you haven’t seen anything until you experience it Stateside. With an “anything goes” attitude all morals have long since gone out of the window. There will be no allowance for Ronan’s age and he will be expected to perform on late- night shows and dinners etc. And if he get exhausted, there’s always some sleaze-bag on hand ready to put a line of coke under his nose. I’ve seen it a million times.

I know for a fact, that the songs have already been chosen for Ronan’s debut single and album, and that the backing and drum tracks have already been laid down.

Of course, once Ronan’s voice breaks, it’s game-over and he will be commercially redundant for a few years. By the time he gets through that, the world will have moved on and his fan-base will have grown-up a bit. Will he make a comeback? In my experience I’d say probably not.

I’ve met Ronan a few times over the past couple of years. He’s a really nice kid with a generous, warm personality and the most wonderfully cute, girlie-giggle. There’s nothing to not like about Ronan. He’s a really sensitive soul and this comes across as him being a bit effeminate. But in a world of thuggish chavs, Ronan’s a real breath of fresh air really and a real delight to chat to.

Do I think Ronan’s gay? No, is the short answer to that. SYCO have got a lot to answer for in their initial styling and image for Ronan. Like many 12 year old boys, Ronan may have issues in coming to terms with his sexuality in a couple of years. But right now, he’s just a great kid…a bit different, I admit…but a great kid just the same.

I hope Ronan is not damaged by this experience, unforunately, history warns otherwise…but whatever, the genie is already out of the bottle and come this weekend, Ronan’s life will change forever. Whether it’s a good or bad experience being a 12 year old star in today’s music industry, only time will tell. But as an industry insider I have serious reservations about what is about to happen to Ronan Parke and I doubt he or his family are ready for what’s coming.

Thanks to my friends on Twitter and Facebook for getting this document out. Without you my voice would be silent. If you want to help expose the lie which is Britain’s Got Talent, please feel free to republish this article or post a link to it: http://justpaste.it/c8g

Anon
Sony Music UK”

So let’s just wait and see what happens on Saturday, shall we? And finally, just a last bit of advice if you’re thinking about ‘phoning in your vote:

1 – Don’t bother, save your money, it won’t make a scrap of difference…

2 – Get a life!