As a professional speaker, I do more than speak. Marketing myself as a speaker insures that the opportunities to speak will become a reality. Even if it is "word of mouth" marketing, it is still marketing. Of course personal referrals are excellent and highly coveted, but even those can not occur until someone hears you speak.

Marketing methods have evolved over the years. Most veteran speakers are familiar with speaker's bureaus, printed brochures and even printed and bound books to sell from the back of the room. In many cases, the speaker fee pales in comparison to the profit from the back of the room book sales.

Hard copy books are expensive and time consuming to produce. Obtaining the material, organizing the material, refining the information into a chapter format, and proofreading the manuscript all take hours. Selecting a publisher, submitting manuscripts and being accepted consume even more time. Actually printing the book takes even more time. Distribution also requires time, effort and expense.

Perhaps considering an e-book would be more time expedient and cost effective. Accumulating, organizing, refining and proofreading the material occurs whether you are composing a speech or writing a book. The difference factor with an e-book is the time difference from this point forward. Selecting a publisher, submitting manuscripts, waiting for acceptance, printing and delivery time are all eliminated. Furthermore, the distribution time and expense are eliminated with an e-book.

A bound hard cover book looks nicer on the coffee table or in the bookcase than an e-book. Content remains the same. An e-book can be read on the computer or printed out to carry with you. Hard cover books are very transportable as well.

Another advantage of an e-book is that they are easy to edit. Time sensitive information may become obsolete between the writing to the distribution of a hard cover book. E-books can be revised in the blink of an eye and redistributed online immediately with the click of a mouse.

Self publishing has gained popularity in recent years in order to eliminate some of the time and expense factors of hard cover publishing. Caution! Self publishing still involves cost of production and distribution. Even though it eliminates the expense of selecting a publisher, submitting manuscripts and waiting for acceptance, other costs are totally the responsibility of the author who self publishes. Another factor to consider with self publishing revolves around the promotion of the book. Depending on the terms of the publisher, the publisher may absorb some of the publishing, distribution and publicity costs. With self publishing, these costs all remain with the author.

Setting aside the publication issues, all books require content. In John C Maxwell's first book "Think on These Things" he wrote very short chapters. Most of his chapters were two or three pages long. Someone asked him how he arrived at the delightful idea of writing short chapters. His reply was, "It was my first book. I didn't think longer than three pages. In fact, some of the chapters were two pages too long." I rarely disagree with John Maxwell; however, I found his book delightful and informative.

The lesson to take from short chapters is that most of these chapters were article length.

Most speakers and writers start by composing articles. Most ezine articles range from 450 to 750 words.