Jennifer Lancaster

February 7, 2017

How Easy it is to Get Scammed by Home Worker Offers

This morning I clicked on a pleasant-looking ad for working from home, claiming you can make $65 an hour without selling. It took me to a sales page for Online Wealth Markets trading, listing huge payout details in the thousands and ‘real user’ comments. It had a clever little ‘phone-shaped’ opt-in form to take credit card details and $5 ($7 Aus). Even though all the warning signs were there, I thought “let’s follow this white rabbit and see where it goes”. It might help somebody. Inside is a bit about ‘members’ binary options trading with James Ulrich. Googled his picture; just a stock photo. Googled James Ulrich; not much on him except a SEC record for insider trading in 2007 — however, due to legal ramifications I must state that this trading record may not be for the same person…

December 13, 2017

Self-Publishing

Claiming our Tax Treaty on US Withholding Tax

Australian authors, save yourself some time and trouble — I have researched about claiming the tax treaty on the 30% US withholding tax on US sales of books or ebooks. If you don’t recognise the platform name, then it won’t apply to you. Save up to 25% on taxes for American sales – as our treaty is 5%. Stop Press! Most Australians do not need to apply for an EIN or ITIN to claim the treaty. You will need to fill out the W8-BEN form or W8-BENE form (for entities) and send in directly to your royalty payment issuer. If you are an agent, then another form applies and you will need the EIN (apply by phone–see bottom of page). The AMAZON Tax Interview will inform you of the correct form to use. Amazon Kindle or CreateSpace Tax Form Take…

January 14, 2025

Home-Based Business

50 Things to Improve My Business

Today I’m documenting 50 things I can do to improve my business. For readers, there should be a few tips and observations which can help you also to get things moving! I will phone follow-up all enquirers, even those I spoke to with the possibility in their mind of putting out an ebook. Albeit slowly, I will finish fixing Udemy video course: New Money Life. I will keep finding great local business listings to add to the RedcliffeQld or NorthLakesQld or ChermsideQld guide. I will keep in touch with all those people I connected well with at meetup groups or launches. e.g. LinkedIn connect, coffee date, or email. Use CRM as reminder. I will keep looking for ways to improve the ebook formatting process. I will endeavour to track time wisely with Harvest program. I will invoice all projects promptly and…

March 31, 2025

Self-Publishing

How to Publish an eBook on Amazon Kindle

Everyone, you can now publish to Amazon Kindle (KDP) with just a Word document. That said, you will need to ready it and learn the pros and cons of various Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) offerings, such as Kindle Select (exclusive eBook distribution for 90-day periods). Print on Demand publishing? Read the complete “How to Publish a Book in Australia“. The Process of Formatting for EBook Automatic Conversion 1. Strip out all headers and footers / page numbering. Your book will have a header in the end, don’t worry. 2. I assume you want to have reflowable text. Make images static and reasonable size (e.g. 150 kB and 72 dpi, not 2 MB). Take out all text boxes. Don’t bother with photo captions. 3. Put the hidden characters on, Check for tabs and take them all out. Take out all Word…

August 1, 2016

Self-Publishing, Selling eBooks and Media

Book Life Listing

Astounding authors, today I discovered another great site for book promotion: Book Life. I found it through the American-based Independent Book Publishers Association. It’s easy to use — just load your Author Profile and upload your latest unpublished or published works, including formats, news, reviews and a buy page link. See my financial book example. You can wait and have your book reviewed by BookLife (see the blue button on the left-hand side once logged in). That is free, but the Publishers Weekly supplement listing costs US$ 149 (quite a number of listings – is anyone taking notice?). Starting out, you’re probably better off first trying Ingram Advance catalog listing (US$60) or BookSeller+Publisher in Australia. Get yourself a solid publishing name first — like Power of Words! (But not that one, I took it already). Book Marketing Tip for the day:…

August 17, 2024

Book Marketing

Getting Your Book Marketing Ducks All in a Row

Every professional wants to know how they can make their book a success, without going crazy with overload! Here are some ideas for book marketing by leveraging what you are doing: Update your website with a bookstore that comes with buy links to Amazon, Goodreads, and print publisher site. Try the plugin: MyBookTable for WordPress. Considering an author website for the first time? Then ensure it’s designed for authors with colourful images of your book, clear selling points, a media page with photos, and your Bio. Also use a SEO plugin. Create bookmarks with the book URL so that you can hand them out at launch, also later on. Advance Distribution. If preparing a while beforehand, contact Dennis Jones & Associates to find out if they can distribute it or handle the eBook version. (Must be able to order 500+ print run…