That’s what most of us want isn’t it?  To write a book that has our name on the front that we can hand to those around us, share with our industry Top Guns, tell our kids about when they get older and put some extra money in our pocket as we work toward becoming a top paid writer who can eventually quit their frustrating day job!

One way to do that is to get a literary agent and sign a publishing contract with a nice, healthy advance where you can take a month or two off of your job and write your book…or work at it each evening while you continue in your current job.

That’s okay for about 150,000 authors out of the millions and millions that try and get published each year…of course there is also the self-published route where you can actually make much more money, but may have to compromise on the “famous published author dream”, at least to begin with.

In fact, the growing popularity of ebooks – especially non-fiction, how-to ebooks, make this not only a dream-come-true scenario for aspiring writers, but a very lucrative information publishing business that can  have you earning well beyond your current job or career. 

Over at Information Marketer’sZone we’ve had six-figure ebook and info product publishers who are well on their way to earning 7-figures all kicked off by a 40-60 page ebook they decided to publish in their spare time. 

Whatever path you decide to take with your goal to write a book, you will benefit from this great summary of what you need to get published (or sell books if you are self-published) from Susan Harrow of the P.R. Examiner titled “Find a Literary Agent: Get A 6-Figure Book Advance”. 

In her article she mentions two of the most important aspects of book marketing – self-published or not…

1. Having a platform – which simply means have you created a following through some of the techniques we share within InfoMarketer’sZone such as list building, landing page opt-in’s, blogging, teleseminars, and a website that works well in getting your visitors to take action. 

2. Have a marketing plan — in more than 40-hours of videos we share basic and advanced marketing techniques for exposing your book, website, business and personality to the hottest buyers in your marketplace using everything from press releases to YouTube videos, from search engine optimzed content to paid advertising — leaving no stone unturned so that you can generate a flood of traffic and activity around the launch and sale of your book. 

Whether you use these techniques to get your first 6-figure publishing advance or whether you build yourself a 6-figure self-publishing internet empire, the rewards will be the same — recognition, prestige and a much fatter wallet with a very large dash of security from the ongoing recession thrown in for good measure.